


Never Take Your Eyes off of Me

by muttthecowcat22



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anxiety, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Soulmate AU, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2018-10-25 23:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muttthecowcat22/pseuds/muttthecowcat22
Summary: My soulmate has blue eyes.My father and mother both have dark brown ones.  My sister was born with brown eyes as well.I was born with one brown eye, like my parents and my sister, and one blue eye, like my soulmate.The music cued me to begin my skate.  The lonesome piano notes swirled through the arena by my side, soft and haunting, before being joined by a full, cheerful orchestra of varied instruments—a man searching for his lost heart in the chaos of the world.Or, soulmates Viktor and Yuuri find each other but fail to realize it.  They must create their own path to find each other again.Based on the soulmate AU by mega-truong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This [soulmate AU](https://mega-truong.tumblr.com/post/157703228709/victuuri-soulmate-au-where-you-are-born-with-one) and the first sentence of this fic (and every time it is repeated) were originally created by mega-truong.
> 
> Warning: Most of this story is told through Yuuri’s perspective, so his anxiety, and a few anxiety attacks, are described.

My soulmate has blue eyes.

Not the common dark gray-blue, either, but a bright, piercing blue.  I can’t really find the right words for the color.  I’d call them icy, but they have more life to them, a hint of green just around the pupil if one looks closely enough.

My soulmate has blue eyes.

It’s not a common thing, apparently – to have a soulmate, that is.  In fact, most people don’t; I’ve only ever met one other person who does. 

My soulmate has blue eyes.

My father and mother both have dark brown ones.  My sister was born with brown eyes as well.

I was born with one brown eye, like my parents and my sister, and one blue eye, like my soulmate.  If I hadn’t grown up with my family, I wouldn’t have known whether my eyes were actually brown or actually blue. When I looked in the mirror, I saw nothing odd, nothing that wasn’t myself. 

When I was born, soulmates were so rare that my mother and father had my blue eye tested to determine if the odd color indicated a vision problem.  Of course, I couldn’t see anything more out of the brown eye than the blue. 

It was my friend Yuuko who first suggested that I could have a soulmate.  She told me that the day after I looked my soulmate in the eye, I would lose my blue eye and regain my natural brown one. I had nearly cried at this information, upsetting her and my mom, because it would have hurt me to lose the blue eye, just as much as the brown one, just as much as any other part of myself.  I told her that I didn’t believe it, that my eyes didn’t mean anything.  I didn’t have a soulmate. 

But, I had been lying.  I often wondered if my soulmate also needed glasses as well, if we were alike in any way.  I never told Yuuko what I really thought out loud.

And so, when I recognized my soulmate on TV for the first time, I immediately ran to the rinkside locker room at Ice Castle to ensure that my blue eye was still staring back at me through the scratches in the mirror.  It was, our eyes couldn’t meet through the TV after all, I guessed.

I was twelve years old at the time.  I could skate fairly well by that point; I could dance even better.  I was the most flexible dancer in my class.  All my splits had been complete for years.  I could pull my leg up all the way and tilt my head back until my toes touched my forehead.  Everyone in the class would clap and cheer.

My soulmate was sixteen years old.  He could dance _and_ skate better than anyone around him.  No one could touch him.  He could pull his leg up all the way and hold the blade of his skate over his forehead while gliding across the ice.  Every jump, every step that he made in his dark skating outfit flowed into the loud, lighthearted music of his free skate, his long silver hair fanning out behind him.  It was beautiful.

I had seen his skating many times before that day.  Yuuko had gushed about how much his performances stood out when she first noticed him in the Junior Grand Prix series two years earlier.  Since then, I had watched every performance with her.  His programs seemed magical at times in their beauty; I loved them.  I could tell that his eyes were two different colors from the beginning.  I thought that, perhaps, we were alike; perhaps, I could become an international skater as well.  I had often wondered about the color of his eyes, but the cameras had never before focused close enough on his face to show them clearly.

My soulmate has blue eyes.  That’s all I could think of as I looked at the close-up shot of his face on the screen.

My soulmate’s name is Viktor Nikiforov.

Viktor won gold that day.

You ask me how I knew that Viktor Nikiforov, figure skating celebrity already at the age of sixteen, was my soulmate?  Many people have blue eyes, and many people have brown eyes after all.

My answer is that I have been uncertain of many things in my life.  When I was twelve, I wasn’t certain that I was a competent skater at all.  I wasn’t certain that I wasn’t a burden to my friends and family.  Yuuko and Takeshi were my only friends.  I thought, perhaps, that they didn’t really like me; they only felt sorry for me, and, one day, they would both realize that they were tired of me and move on.  I wasn’t certain that if I asked for too large of a space in their lives that they wouldn’t tire of me more quickly.  So, I tried to remain as quiet and unobtrusive around them (and everyone else) as I could.  Yet, despite it all, I still became particularly close to Yuuko, and she introduced me to Viktor.  Viktor became my one relief.  I could love him from far away without the fear of rejection that always trailed behind me with other people. 

So, believe me when I say that, at twelve years old, as I watched the close up of Viktor’s one brown eye and one blue eye on the grainy TV screen screwed into the wall of the break room at Ice Castle, I had never been more certain of anything.  His left eye was the same as my right, and his right eye the same as my left.  I knew the eyes because I looked at them every day.  I knew everything about them because they were a part of myself.

I have no words to describe the extent of my feelings that day, but I might be able to make some comment on the physical sensation.  My heart raced in my chest, warming my body.  My eyes remained glued to the screen even after Viktor’s performance ended, trying to catch a glimpse of him off the ice.  Yet, at the same time, I felt my chest tighten around my heart, pulling me back to the reality of my hometown, the hard wooden bench where I sat beside Yuuko, the faded yet plush bright blue carpet of the breakroom yielding to my tennis shoes, the knowledge that. . . well, that I was nothing compared to Viktor.  He would be embarrassed of me if he knew. . . if he knew that I was his soulmate.

And so, in this conflicted state of mind, I watched the entirety of the broadcast of the men’s free skate at the Junior World Championships, all the way through to the medal ceremony.  Takeshi grumbled while Yuuko cheered for Viktor, and I cheered too.  I cheered even with my constricted heart.  For, despite knowing the reality of the situation, my mind kept wandering back to the possibility that, one day, I might be able to skate like Viktor.  Viktor was a genius, and, well, I wasn’t, I’m still not, but perhaps, if I worked hard enough, I thought, I might just be able to do it.  It was a scary thought to consider, but I wanted, I needed to become someone that Viktor could be proud of, someone that I could be proud of myself.

So, that was the moment, when I was twelve years old in the break room at Ice Castle, that I decided to put my heart into skating, to go all the way, give it everything I had.  Then, even if my plan fell through, even if Viktor never looked my way, much less at my eyes, I could do something that I was proud of.  I could be proud of myself.

Or. . . at least, that’s what I told myself almost a thousand times before the last few minutes of the broadcast played out on the screen and I walked out of Ice Caste, over the bridge, and towards my home.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That night, pale noodles swam around and around my bowl as I ran my chopsticks through them.  Yuuko and Takeshi sat across the table from me, chatting happily; or, at least, Yuuko was chatting while Takeshi listened.  They smiled at each other.  From their conversation, I could tell that Yuuko had not noticed Viktor’s eyes at all.  Every now and then, she turned toward me, smiling, and I tried, as well, to smile.  My earlier excitement had caused me, oddly enough, to lose my appetite.  I continued to play with my noodles as my thoughts drifted far away from reality, back to Viktor’s free skate, his eyes, my plans to become a better skater.  Then, I realized the huge mistake that I had made.

If my eye was going to turn brown, it wouldn’t have happened earlier at Ice Castle.  My eye wouldn’t change until the _day after_.  Before my thoughts could spiral out of control, a voice abruptly pulled me back to reality.

“Yuuri.”

My bowl of ramen nearly flew across the table as I jumped at the proximity from which my name had been called.  I turned to my right to find that Mari had silently settled beside me at the table with her own bowl of ramen.  She was already moving with her napkin to mop up the broth that I had spilled.  Yuuko and Takeshi still happily chatted away, not noticing a thing.

Mari shot me a stern look.  “Why aren’t you eating?” she asked.

“I . . . uh, lost my appetite,” I answered, looking back down at the remainder of my noodles.

The very corner of her mouth ticked down a hair.  “Yuuri, you _never_ lose your appetite.  Mom cooked today just for you, Yuuko, and Takeshi.  Are you sick?”  She pointed her chopsticks at my nose.

“No, no, I’m fine.  Really.” I tried, once again, to smile.

It must not have looked right.  Mari raised one eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” she asked.  I felt her gaze pierce through my chest and out my back.

“Y-Yes.”  My voice sounded shaky, even to myself.  I looked back down at my swirling noodles, my chopsticks shaking in my hand.  I knew Mari wouldn’t be satisfied, but she didn’t press any further and began to eat her own dinner. 

After Yuuko and Takeshi returned to their own homes for the night, I quickly retreated to my room.  No matter how much I tried, I could not stop the shaking in my hands.  I dug a handheld mirror out of my desk and held it up to my blue eye. 

 _The next day_ – did that mean at midnight or after the sun rose, or did I have to actually go to sleep and wake up?  When I attempted to lay down, my heart rate spiraled out of control.  I jolted off my bed every few minutes to grab the handheld mirror and check my eye.  The fifth time I held up the mirror, my red, blotchy face stared back at me covered in tears, illuminated by the faint light from my window.  My entire body shook on my bed as I tried to muffle my sobs with my pillow.  Numbness gradually began to prick in my fingers and toes. 

Nothing had happened yet. 

I knew there was no real reason to be afraid: if my eye changed colors, it wouldn’t hurt me, but it felt like a fate that I couldn’t run away from, couldn’t escape.  That thought terrified me.

As the numbness spread up my hands as well, the door to my room silently slid open in the darkness.

“ _Yuuri_ ,” said Mari, with a tone, not of comfort, but of accusation.  Then, there was silence for a moment.  Footsteps. 

“Shh, Yuuri, what’s wrong?”  Her voice sounded much softer this time as she extended a hand to one of my shoulders.  I couldn’t breathe well enough to answer her, though.  She waited a few seconds to see if I would speak, then, slowly, she crawled into bed with me and wrapped me in a warm hug.  Gradually, I began to relax into the hug, my heart rate slowed, and my body stopped shaking.  Even though it didn’t make any sense, Mari made me feel safer.  She noticed as I calmed down.

“It’s okay; I’ll stay with you until morning,” she said.  Eventually, exhaustion crept up on me, and I closed my eyes.

My eyes opened to the bright sunlight streaming through the window, partially blocked by Mari’s hair, her arms and legs sprawled out, taking up way more than half my bed.

The dread about my eye took less than a minute to seize my mind once again.  I bolted from the bed to the bathroom down the hallway.

I looked at my eye in the mirror.

It was still blue.

I cried.

But, this time, I cried from relief.  Still exhausted, I collapsed onto the cool, smooth bathroom floor and found myself unable to rise for the next few minutes.  The cold green tile quickly chilled the tears on my face and pressed the corner of my glasses into my temple.  When I was able to stand, I returned to my bedroom and squeezed back into bed with Mari.

She never asked about what happened that night, and I never mentioned it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The synthetic fabric of my uniform chafed my skin as I ran my hands down the legs of my pants, a constant zipping noise flowing from it.  I had lost track even remotely of the lesson our teacher droned on about.  No one at school payed me any attention, having long ago accepted my odd eye color as part of the scenery, well no one, that is, except Yuuko.

Ever since I had first met Yuuko at ballet class, she had been fascinated with my eyes.  Her own eyes bored into me each time that our beginner class met once a week.  She always made sure to grab the spot just behind me at the barre.  I can still see her, gliding around Ice Castle, purposefully waiting for me after my very first skating lesson. 

She had blurted, “Do you have a soulmate?  Is that why your eyes are that color?”

I had been extremely flustered by the question, but Yuuko’s excitement seemed to make her so happy that I could not let her down.

“U-uhm, I don’t know?” I had answered.  At which, she squeaked and began to gush about her undying interest in every soulmate pair that had ever existed and everything that she had learned about them over her parent’s slow but intact dial-up internet connection.  I had been a little overwhelmed at the time, being only seven years old.  My crying episode wouldn’t occur until following day, though.

She had ended her rant claiming, “I’ll help you find your soulmate.  Then, you can fall in love and get married and invite me to the wedding!”

“T-Thanks, Yuuko.”

But Yuuko wasn’t in this class.  As I drifted through my thoughts that day, I wondered if I should be trying to find my soulmate, if I should reach out to Viktor.  No matter how many times I tried to focus on the lesson, my mind always pulled back to him.  Every time that I tried to think of a way to contact him, it seemed impractical.  Either, I would never reach him, or he would think that I was some kind of fraud. 

Or he wouldn’t care at all.

“Katsuki Yuuri, it’s your turn to read.”  The teacher’s voice tolled out my death sentence. 

I eyed my book for a good 60 seconds, staring at the repeated words of _Rat_ and _Mole_ scattered across the page, before realizing that I had no idea where we were in it.  Mrs. Nakano’s knowing stare penetrated into my skull.

The girl in front of me turned around and dropped her finger onto the first sentence of the last paragraph on the second page, her fingernails painted blue.  I felt ridiculously grateful to that girl in that moment.  I knew her well despite rarely speaking with her; she had been in my class since we were five years old.  I think that in another life we could have been friends. 

I don’t remember her name.

I finished reading the paragraph (summary: Rat and Mole rowed down the river).  Viktor did have a fan mail address, I remembered.  Maybe I could send him a letter and hope that he actually read his fan mail.  That seemed to be the only option.  The bell rang, interrupting my thoughts and signaling the end of English class.

During the next class period, I dropped my pencil.  It rolled across the white tiled floor, and I bent over and under my desk to pick it up.  Then, I dropped my pencil again.  And again.  And again.  My classmates were beginning to stare.  My hands sweated and shook as I once more dusted the dirt off the blue paint on my pencil.  I stared back down at the mostly blank sheet of paper on my desk instead of the blackboard. 

So far I had:

 _Dear_ Виктор, (I had been so proud to learn Viktor’s name in Cyrillic)

_I watched you skate at the world championships.  I think I am your soulmate.  We have the same color eyes.  I like my blue eye very much ~~.  I like it better than my brown one.~~   ~~Your skating is beautiful.~~   I am a figure skater too.  One day, I want to compete against you. ~~I’m not ready yet.~~   ~~I want to become a better skater.~~   Keep skating until then, and please watch me._

My shaking hand and limited English would allow me to write nothing more.   I could not even write my own name.  I left it anonymous.  Maybe, I shouldn’t send the letter after all, I thought.  By the time the teacher began glancing my way, I had folded the letter and slid it into my uniform breast pocket, the white paper glowing brightly against the dark fabric.

The letter burned in my pocket for the remainder of the school day, but I dared not touch it.

The sunlight blinded me as I stepped through the large metal double doors leading out of the school.  I continued stepping forward blindly as I blinked my eyes and proceeded to walk straight into Yuuko.  The collision rang with a dull thud.

“Yuuri, I’ve been waiting on you.  You’ll never guess what I found!”  The sun glanced off her hair.  She did not look the least bit perturbed from running into another person.  Takeshi stood just off to her side along the steps down to the sidewalk.  He silently followed as Yuuko grabbed my hand and began tugging me down the steps and towards the lonely shade tree across the road.  She knelt under the tree and rummaged through her backpack, eventually pulling out a large cardboard tube.

“Look, Yuuri!” she said, as she uncapped the tube and tugged a poster out of it, a poster of Viktor Nikiforov.  “It’s for you!”

The close-up shot of Viktor in his free skate outfit, gold medal hanging from his neck, smiled back at me, the colors of his eyes clearly visible.  My hands moved to grab the poster, while Yuuko still held it.  The same warm but haunting feeling that I had experienced while watching the Junior Worlds broadcast slipped over me, except that this time, it became warmer, more comforting, real.  The warmth did not sink into me through my skin; it was an internal source of warmth, spreading outward, something to do with the joy evident in Viktor’s smile, something about me being happy about his happiness.  The gloss poster paper squeaked beneath my fingertips, the edges of the thick material flapping in a particularly strong gust of wind.

“I love it, Yuuko—I love it!” I said.  I could feel a smile on my face, the tops of my cheeks bumped into my glasses.

“Look at his eyes Yuuri!” she said, “They’re just like yours.”  She hopped in place, bringing her hands to her mouth. “What if _Viktor’s_ your soulmate?”  Her voice sounded so bright, hopeful.

As the temperature of my face rose, I kept my eyes trained on the poster; I could not force myself to look at Yuuko.  My right hand climbed to cover the pocket on my chest.  The wind continued to blow the sunlight through my hair, onto the back of my neck, across the gleam of the poster, into Yuuko’s hands.

I couldn’t tell her.  It felt distinctly wrong.  I might never even tell Viktor himself; I couldn’t tell Yuuko.  I wasn’t sure that anything real would ever come of it anyway.

So I lied—or rather, I laughed.

I laughed loud and hard, forcing happiness into the air.  “Viktor Nikiforov could never be _my_ soulmate.  I’ve told you before that I don’t believe in it anyway.”  I laughed again to prove the point.

“Well, I think that he could—in fact, I think that you two would be _cute_ together,” she said, but her smile had fallen, “You shouldn’t underestimate yourself, Yuuri!  You love the ice just as much as he does.  One day, you’ll be _better_ than him.  One day, you’ll meet him, and you won’t be able to deny any longer that you are anything less than equals.”  I looked at her then; my laugh died.  Her words had been heated but not harsh.

“I just can’t see that ever happening.  I love skating, but I’ll never be as good as Viktor,” I said.

“Look me in the eye, Katsuki Yuuri, and tell me that you don’t want it.”  She stared at me for a few more seconds, unmoving except for the wind gusting through her hair.  “I know you, Yuuri, and, if you’re really going to do this, I know you want it.  You want to make it to all those big competitions that Viktor competes in, and then, you want to do _better_ than him.  And _I_ believe that you can do it.”

Yuuko was right; I did want it.  I didn’t want to focus on skating to only end up doing a mediocre job.  I wanted to be a success story, to be the one at the top of the podium with the gold medal.  I would never be truly satisfied with anything less.  I knew that.  I also knew that it was highly unlikely that it would ever happen.

I had forgotten about Takeshi, standing just to the side of us, until he laid a hand gently on Yuuko’s shoulder.

“I’m about to have to go on to Ice Castle.  Stay and talk with Yuuri as long as you need,” he said, “I’ll see you both at practice.”  Yuuko’s expression warmed again as he waved to us and headed down the sidewalk.

“Thanks, Yuuko,” I said.  Her head whipped back towards me from where she had been following Takeshi’s fading form

“I’m not done with you yet, Katsuki Yuuri.”  She removed the poster from my hands to roll it back into the tube and force the whole thing into my backpack.  “There—now, I want you to take this poster home and hang it up in your room and think about your goal every time you look at it.  And I also want you to think about your soulmate, even if it’s not Viktor.  I know you don’t believe in it, but I think that you should at least try to find your soulmate.  Not all of us are so lucky to have one,” she said, lifting a hand to rub her left eye, perhaps from the wind, perhaps from something else. 

I never realized until that moment that Yuuko had always been fascinated with soulmates because she longed for one herself.  I had thought that her fascination with them equaled that of her general interests in school and skating, but I was wrong.  She was trying to help me find something that she thought she could never have herself.

“Maybe you and your soulmate just have the same color eyes,” I said.

“Yes, maybe so,” she replied.  She smiled, not as wide as earlier, but genuine. 

I thought that maybe I should send my letter after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

That night, after practice, I stooped behind the old wooden front desk at the onsen, pulling out each of the five layers of drawers, until I found a white envelope and a strip of dog stickers, leftovers from my elementary school days.  I carried them back to my room, quickly and silently, before Mari could spot me.

I left the letter anonymous.  It would be better, I told myself, it would be better that way. 

After copying down Viktor’s fan mail address, I folded the letter into the white envelope and added two blue dog stickers to the front.  I left no return address.  The envelope crinkled softly in my hands beneath the gentle pressure of my fingers.  I would mail it the next day.

The next day.

Maybe I would receive a reply.  But probably not.  How could I with no name and no return address?  It was better that way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

My blades shone silver as I glided to the center of the ice.  I smoothed my hands over the soft blue velvet of my vest.  For my short program costume, I had opted to wear an embellished vest over a simple white shirt and regular black skating slacks.  It had been less expensive.  A pink and blue diamond pattern covered the back of the vest, gold glitter outlining the shapes and seams of the garment.

I was thirteen years old.  It had taken me another year to perform well enough in the novice competition to qualify for the Japan Junior Championships, but I had finally done it.  This would be my first competition in which I would be expected to perform for a true crowd.  My vision blurred with fear.

Or perhaps, it was a result of the new contact lens in my right eye. I had asked for contacts, brown ones specifically, at my last eye appointment.  The doctor had pitied me with a smile; she thought I hated my eyes.  I didn’t. 

I wore only one contact, over my blue eye.  The first time I slid it over my iris, tears poured from it; I thought they would never end.  I rubbed until my skin turned red.  I forced myself to adapt to the feeling though, and, more quickly than I thought, I couldn’t feel anything at all.  Too many spectators at these competitions saw only the color of my eyes, or, at least, I believed they did.  I worried that they would compare me to Viktor, so I hid my eyes from everyone.  It was better that way.  I wanted them to see me, to see my skating.  I wanted Viktor to see my skating.

As I fell into my starting pose, one leg behind me, one arm extended forward, the rink air blew, cold and seeping, over my shoulders.  Perhaps, I should not hide this side of myself from the audience, I thought.  It felt somehow wrong, but these thoughts fled my mind quickly under the white pressure of the rink. As [the music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThheURpb8-4) cued me to begin my skate, I had never related to it more.  The lonesome piano notes swirled through the arena by my side, soft and haunting, before being joined by a full, cheerful orchestra of varied instruments—a man searching for his lost heart in the chaos of the world.

Somehow, I managed to land all of my jumps, a mix of triples and doubles.  As I ended my final spin and struck my final pose with both hands covering my heart, I smiled.

My soulmate has blue eyes.

But my eyes are brown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Yuuri's short program music - [Merry Go Round of Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThheURpb8-4) by Joe Hisaishi
> 
> I have never written a fanfic in first person before; let me know what you think about it in the comments.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, it's been like 2 months since I updated this - yikes!!! I'm so sorry this took so long. From now on, I should be able to update regularly every other week. Thanks for all the comments and kudos last chapter; they really mean a lot to me!!

I had done it.

I couldn’t believe it.

**Georgi Popovich will now be skating to “Teenage Dream” by Katie Perry.**

I had passed the day in shock.  Nothing, I couldn’t feel anything: not pride, happiness, fear, nothing but the stretch in my legs as I leaned against the red cinderblock wall in the brightly lit corridor.

I had qualified for the Grand Prix Final.

**He has dedicated his gala performance and his third place finish here at Skate Canada to his girlfriend and ice da . . .**

I would skate at the Grand Prix Final with only six other skaters.

I would skate at the Grand Prix Final with Viktor.

It made no sense.

As the spotlight began to follow Georgi across the screen in the corner, I grabbed my bag and headed towards the large double doors, leading into the dark arena.  My loose hair fell into my eyes as I found a bench and laced my skates in the dark.  Phichit had convinced me to wear my hair down for this performance, stating it would fit the part better.  Well, if anyone knew the part, it was Phichit.  He had selected the music for me from a play that I, admittedly, hadn’t yet seen.  I constantly worried that I would be asked about it in an interview, but the smile on Phichit’s face and the wide gestures his hands had moved in as he explained the song to me had forced my hand.

My name thundered from the speakers perched high in the ceiling as Georgi stepped off the ice and I stepped on.  I circled the rink once, the ice dark, barely visible, a muted spotlight following me.  Normally, I’d be trying to calm my nerves, but, in my shock, I had no nerves to calm.  Instead, I glanced up at the dark audience and the silhouettes standing just outside the boards.  Three of these silhouettes stood at the entrance to the ice.  One was Celestino.  I had no idea about the other two.  It was – odd.  Maybe, they just hadn’t found anywhere else to stand.

I skated to the center of the ice, striking my starting pose, on my knees, right hand grasping my left arm.  The spotlight flickered on, full force, casting shadows onto the ice beneath my fingertips.  The first [notes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfnMvo87fQU) of the music filled the arena, and I swung out one arm as I pushed up off the ice and into a slow spin, then another.  As the beat of the drums increased, so did the flash of my blades, my knees bending and ankles tilting side-to-side, faster and faster, in the first choreographic sequence.  But, before it could build any further, I dug my pick into the ice, halting all movement. I tapped the ice three times with my blade before launching into an incredibly fast paced step sequence.  The grueling choreography matched the rhythm of the music without pulling it down.  It reminded me of my step sequence from the year before that had carried me, almost singlehandedly, into eleventh place at World’s, just out of the top ten.  I had seen Viktor then, in person.  I had been close enough to call his name, but too far away to speak.  I had watched him from a distance, a close distance, but a distance all the same.  He had been right there, and I couldn’t make myself walk up to him.  It was frustrating.  The top twenty might as well have been the bottom ten.  But, this year was different.  I knew it.  The energy in my programs had never been higher.  Last year, I had been so close.  This year, I was closer.  I could get closer still.  I had passed the top ten completely; I was in the top six.  Viktor would notice me.  He would see me skate.  He had to.  This year would be different.

This year would be different.

It already was.

I launched into a Salchow

And fell . . .

On purpose.

This failed jump was perhaps my favorite element of the entire routine.  I felt like I was floating, letting go of the feeling that I had to land the jump perfectly every time.  This feeling gave me the energy to throw myself up from the ice at the key change and into a triple axel. I entered my final step sequence, faster than ever.  My feet throbbed and a drop of sweat trickled down my face as I struck my final pose, right hand still grasping my left arm, but, this time, holding it straight up over my head.

The fast routine completely winded me.  I could feel my contacts sitting in my eyes; they must have dried out during the performance.  I held my pose for a minute, catching my breath, listening to the cheers of the audience, before turning towards Celestino.  The other two figures had remained standing beside him.  As I stepped off the ice, to my right, Celestino congratulated me.  To my left, stood a young boy with light hair.  I had seen his face before.  He must have been competing in the junior’s competition.  He extended his hand.

“Good program,” he said, his accent thick, barely understandable.

I shook his hand and thanked him.  I smiled.  He didn’t, the expression on his face neutral but his eyes intense, even in the dark.  He turned abruptly and walked away.  Only then, did I see the person standing behind him.

Yakov Feltsman.

Viktor’s coach.

He didn’t say anything, just turned and followed the boy with a sigh.

Was Viktor there?  My eyes quickly scanned around the room.  No, he should have been in Russia, practicing for the Tropheé.  Yakov Feltsman had traveled to Canada with Georgi, of course.  He should have been with Georgi, though, not waiting on me to step off the ice.  I didn’t know what to think.  The young boy must have been from Russia too, then.  But, they both should have followed Georgi out of the rink after his performance.  They must have been trying to scope out the competition.  I didn’t have time to worry about it.  My contacts felt like splinters in my eyes. 

After removing my skates and excusing myself, I headed back into the bright hallway towards the nearest bathroom.  A large mirror covered most of the red and white tiled wall above the sinks.  I fished my contact solution out of my bag and removed my contacts in front of the mirror with ease.  As I cleaned them, I heard the bathroom door swing open and closed.  Soon enough, I slipped the contacts back into my eyes and turned to leave.

When I did, though, the same young boy stood just beside the door, staring at me.  He quickly turned his head and walked into one of the stalls without a word.  I didn’t know what to do.  What was happening?  I exited the bathroom quickly.  The boy couldn’t have possibly seen me without my contacts.  The view of the mirror had been blocked by my head and arm the entire time. 

I reentered the dark arena just as J.J. struck his starting pose for his victory skate.  Celestino came to stand beside me, gripping my shoulder, congratulating me again.  I was going to skate with Viktor.  Everything else slipped from my mind.  Any other day, the fact that one of Viktor’s teammates had possibly seen my eyes in the bathroom mirror would have considerably worried me.  That day, however, I was in shock, still in shock from the results of the day before.  Even my performance hadn’t been enough to dispel my floating state of mind.  So, I forgot about it and enjoyed the performance.

It wasn’t until that night when I was back in my hotel room, lying in my bed, that the shock finally wore off.  The sounds of the traffic below my window, my only company.

I would skate in the final with only five other people.  Viktor would most definitely see me.  He would see me skate my routines. He would see my starting and ending poses.  If I missed a step, he would see it.  If I downgraded a jump, he would know.  If I fell, he would watch me fall.  I felt exhausted yet awake at the same time, frozen in the space between.  I needed to talk to someone.

I called Phichit.

“Yuuri!  Congratulations!”  I couldn’t keep a smile off my face at the sound of Phichit’s warm voice.  “I just found your EX online, and it was amazing.  Better than my original vision.  I’m so proud.”  His high shriek fizzled through the phone speaker.  “You were fantastic.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

Something in my voice must have given me away.  “Yuuri, is something wrong?” Phichit asked.

“No.”

“Yuuri.”

I sighed.  Phichit wouldn’t give this up until he knew, and I didn’t have the energy to push back.  “I’m just a little worried.”

“A little?”

“Yes.”

“About what? The competition’s already over.”

“Well – I’m going to the final, you know, the Grand Prix Final –“

“Yeah, I know,” he chuckled.

“With Viktor.”

It was Phichit’s turn to sigh.  “Look, you can talk to me about that and start worrying about it all you want when you get back to Detroit.  But, tonight, I want you to forget about it and relax.  You worked so hard to get here.”  Phichit’s voice paused.  “I’m going to send you a video that I think will help.  Watch it and then try to get some sleep. Okay?”

“Okay,” I answered.

“Okay, I’m always here for you, Yuuri – Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” I said, slightly wishing that he would not hang up and, instead, talk to me all night.  But that wouldn’t help either of us.  The call ended, and he sent me the link to the video almost immediately.  I clicked the link and found myself watching – well – watching Viktor skate, his beautiful silver hair and golden blades flashing in the rink lights.

It was a free skate, one that I had never seen before.  The slightly shaky camera caught Viktor’s miscolored eyes every few measures.  They were beautiful; he was beautiful in the dark magenta costume that contrasted with his fair features.  Phichit knew me well.  I gradually relaxed as I watched the video and failed to keep another smile from rising to my face.

The title of the video ran: “Stammi Vicino, Non Te Ne Andare.” 

Phichit texted me: _It’s a leaked video of Viktor’s FS for this season.  Someone managed to film him while he was practicing in costume_.

I immediately felt guilty for watching it.  Viktor loved to surprise the audience; this video would ruin that.  But, Viktor, as always, was enchanting; I couldn’t peel my eyes of my small phone screen.  His face remained serious, almost expressionless throughout the performance.  At the end of the video, though, he smiled as he broke his pose and waved to someone off-screen, eyes shining in the bright rink lights.  I briefly opened google translate and entered the title as I played the video a second time.  “Stay with Me, and Never Leave Me.”  Even the title was beautiful.  I replayed the video again and again.  My last memory of that night – the passionate opera music, struggling to escape from my grainy phone speakers.

* * *

 

The fluorescent lights flickered as I spotted my faded blue suitcase on the belt at baggage claim.  Before I could reach for it, though, a dark pair of hands grabbed the broken handle and pulled it off the belt.  I looked up to find Phichit smiling at me.  I hugged him.  Phichit had more or less taken the place of my family, especially Mari, while I lived in Detroit.   He gripped me back as Celestino walked up to rest a hand on his shoulder.

“That exhibition skate you and Yuuri choreographed was a real show-stopper, Phichit,” he said.

“I had no doubt it would be,” Phichit smiled, “That musical is one of my top three favorites of all time.”

“He’ll be coming with us next year, coach,” I said.

“Yes, indeed he will.”

Phichit gripped me tighter.  He had only been selected to compete in one qualifying competition for the Grand Prix that year.  He never said anything, but I knew that he wanted more.  Phichit was strong, though, stronger than me, and people flocked to him.  He would eventually get there, and, for all I knew, I would fade out before it even mattered.

I nearly fell asleep on Phichit’s shoulder as the bus rolled along Detroit’s busy streets.  When we finally reached our dorm room, I rolled my suitcase into the corner and fell into bed.

“Don’t you want something to eat?” Phichit’s voice called from the depths of the other side of our room.

I made a noncommittal groan.  I couldn’t have moved from the bed if I tried.

“Did you watch the video?”

“Yeah – several times,” I mumbled, hearing Phichit snicker.  “Thanks, Phichit.”

“Your thanksgiving is graciously accepted.  Have fun napping.”

My eyes drifted shut as he slipped back out the door, probably going to the rink.  The next time I opened them, I couldn’t see anything.  The lights had been turned off.  I scrambled to find my phone beneath the covers. 10:00 pm.  I had slept through the entire day.  What to do?  Ideally, I could go back to sleep.  I pulled back up the video of Viktor’s free skate and watched him move through the routine silently at least five times before I cut my phone off, my eyes no more tired than when I had opened them.  I gave up and rolled off the bed, pilfering around in the dark, finding clothes, my skates, my keys, trying not to disturb Phichit.  It felt too easy to slip out the door into the night, trek across campus, unlock the dark rink, turn on a few lights, start skating.

I practiced jumps in the warm glow of the half-lit rink for an hour, but I tired of them before I felt tired myself.  I found myself moving through the first steps of Viktor’s program after another hour or so.  He had made it look so effortless yet sad.  That’s why this program stood out to me: the sadness there that wasn’t ever present in anything else associated with Viktor Nikiforov.  Skating it helped express my own sadness and nerves, made them real, tangible things that I could take hold of and toss far away across the ice.  Before I knew it, I had moved through at least half of the program, marking the jumps.  My phone read 3:00 am.  Four hours of sleep: it wasn’t a lot, but it was something.

During the next week, I returned to the deserted rink nearly every night to skate a program that was not my own, not leaving until two and three in the morning.  In class, I opened my eyes to a tap on my shoulder, the top page in my notebook plastered to my face.  I peeled it off.  The professor either didn’t notice or didn’t care.  I turned to the person sitting beside me: a girl with dark hair and dark eyes.  She looked like she was Asian as well, maybe even an international student.

“You fell asleep,” she whispered, voice completely American, no hint of a foreign accent.

I thanked her and smiled.  She smiled back.  Had she really been sitting beside me all semester? 

I found myself in similar predicaments in most of my other classes.  One professor did notice.  I had never felt more embarrassed than when I opened my eyes to see her glaring at me. I felt like a slob.  Stupid, stupid.  Other people could get away with it, but not me.  I had never fallen asleep in class before that week.  I knew Celestino or, at least, Phichit would notice eventually that something was wrong; I just didn’t anticipate how quickly it would happen.

By the end of the week, I had finally reached the point where I could more or less skate through the entire program.  My fuzzy surroundings, the boards, the metal bleachers, swung by me as I glided through the motions.  I never wore my contacts to these late night practices.  Since I had moved to Detroit, I practically wore them everywhere.  Perhaps it was careless, but it felt – nice – I think, to go without them for once.  The first time I skated through the program without stopping felt wonderful.  The cold air whipped through my hair as I sped around the rink, building up speed for a jump, but I didn’t feel it.  Instead, I felt incredibly warm, content even, to continue skating in the dim rink forever.  Relief, that’s what this program meant to me.  I smiled as my movements faded to a stop; I wrapped my arms around myself in the final pose.  Viktor wrapped his arms around me as well.  We both smiled at each other, our faces a few centimeters apart, and we were content to keep them there, to just exist in that moment with each other.  The dim lights cast gold hues into his silver hair and warmed the rims of his two-toned eyes.  Precious.  Stunning.  Beautiful.  I reached my hand up to touch his gold-washed cheek.  Untouchable.  Gone.  He faded.

I was alone, more alone than ever before, in the cold rink.  Not only that, but I had failed to understand Viktor’s program in some way.  In the recording, his face had remained set, almost melancholy, at the end, never smiling.  Where had I gone wrong?

I decided to skate through the program a second time before calling it a night.  As I prepared to enter my first jump, a camera shutter echoed through the rink.  Ice shavings dusted the air as I slid to a stop.  Phichit waved at me from the bleachers.

“You going to stay here all night?” he called.

It had only taken him a week to figure it out.  How was I supposed to survive until the final?

I pulled my hat farther over my ears as we walked back to our dorm.  It was a frigid winter night, even for Detroit, the stars above our heads partially obscured by the streetlights.

“You’re not wearing your contacts,” Phichit said, his breath coming out in white puffs.

“I didn’t see the point, without anyone there.  It feels better anyway – without them.”  Sometimes, on a particularly accented word, I could see my own breath puff out in front of me.

“Really?”  Phichit tugged down his dark beanie.

“Yeah.”  We continued to walk in silence.  The wind whipped around the tall brick buildings, penetrating my coat.

“Is it – Viktor – why you do it?”

“Huh?”  What had I done?  Did he know?  Probably.  Anyone who saw my eyes could probably figure it out.  I just never actually said anything about it, and no one asked.

“Do you wear contacts because of Viktor or because you actually want to?” Phichit repeated.

“I – uh – I don’t –“  I didn’t know what to say.  I had literally never talked about it before to anyone.

A large white puff appeared in front of his face.  He waved his hands.  “It’s okay – it’s okay.  You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” he said, glancing at me.  I smiled, letting him know that I was fine.   “How about a different question then:  have you ever thought about not wearing them?”

“No, not really.”

“Maybe, you should?”  Phichit’s voice came out quieter than the wind.  Where was this coming from?

“I just – I don’t know – I know you like Viktor a lot,” he continued, “but I don’t think that you should have to hide part of yourself just because of another person – if you don’t really want to.”  He looked at me then.  Maybe he was right.  I might perform better without contacts.  But, without them, everyone would know, wouldn’t they? 

“Thanks, Phichit,” I said, for lack of anything better to say.  I probably said it too much.  Phichit squeezed my arm, shielding it from the cold.  My own breath puffed into my glasses.

“You should wear your glasses more anyway.  You look sexier in them.”

“Phichit!” I sputtered.  I couldn’t think of any way to respond to that.  “I do not!”

“Yes you do.”  He skipped ahead of me and turned around, bringing his hand up to his face as if he was putting on a pair of glasses.  “Hi, Viktor,” he called, narrowing his eyes, slowly pulling his hand back down, “I only put my glasses on for you.”  He winked.

I hadn’t laughed so hard in a long time.  “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.  I’m definitely never wearing my glasses now.”

“No, the most ridiculous thing would be if you actually did it. – I can see the look on Viktor’s face.”

“He would be horrified.”

“No, he would be so turned on that he would grab your hand and pull you into the nearest closet.”

“Phichit!”

“Mark my words, Yuuri: Viktor has a glasses kink.”

“No he does not!  H-How did you even come up with something like that?”

“I hear your voice wavering.  You like the idea too.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

I stopped to wipe the condensate from my glasses.  Phichit laughed beside me. 

From that night on, Phichit came with me to my late night run-throughs of Viktor’s program.  He never let me stay at the rink past midnight.  My sleep did not improve, though.  I stared at the textured ceiling of our room every night, thinking of every worst-possible chain of events at the Grand Prix Final.  I slipped, fell, broke my ankle.  I either collided with Viktor and gave him a concussion, or he didn’t notice me at all. I left the arena in tears or nauseous or broken, on a stretcher.  My brain supplied image after image until I finally fell asleep each night.  Skating Viktor’s program became the only relief from this torment.  Two hours.  Two hours were all I got every day.  I skated until I could perform every jump in the program except the quad flip.  Phichit would busy himself with his phone or homework.

One night, I caught him filming me.

“I think you’ll want to watch this again one day,” he said.  I let him, too engrossed in the program, too tired to care.  I had finally begun to understand more or less why Viktor performed the program without happiness.  The program wasn’t about finding another person; it was about being alone, seeing something, just out of reach, that you could never have.  I thought of Yuuko when she was young, how she had seen me and wished for a soulmate herself.  But, was I any better off than her?  The answer to that was obviously _no_.  Yuuko’s life wasn’t perfect, but it was happy and beautiful.  I looked at her and her family and realized that, most likely, it was something that I would never have.  It hurt in a way nothing else did; it nearly brought me to tears out on the ice.  And I was afraid, afraid to end up alone, guilty for holding it against Yuuko.  Would Viktor ever notice me?  Would I ever be good enough?  I struck the final pose for the millionth time and wrapped my arms around myself because, eventually, it would be the only comfort that I would have left.

Phichit clapped from his vantage point in the stands.  “That’s the best one yet,” he said.  I made sure to shed no tears.

A week passed and, then, nearly another.  My spoon fell out of my hand at breakfast; my face nearly landed in my cereal bowl before Phichit caught me.  I couldn’t stay awake in any of my classes, so I quit going to them.  I skipped meals so that I could sleep during the day, when the sun kept my thoughts away.  I worried about skipping class and skipping meals and burdening Phichit.  I worried about skating.

I ran through both my short and long programs multiple times every day.  At the end of the following week, Celestino and I would fly out to Sochi for the final.  I practiced my quad toe loop again and again, my blades striking the ice with a satisfying thud each time.  On Friday, I worked on the quad Salchow, landing it on the first try.  “That looked great, Yuuri,” Celestino called from outside the barrier, the bright lights washing out his tan skin, “focus on the Salchow from now on.  We might be able to add it in another time for the final.”

“Yes, coach.”  I built up for another jump, but, this time, my blade slid out from under me on the landing.  I hit the ice, striking the side of my thigh.  When I pulled myself up, I noticed small spots on the edges of my vision.  I ignored them, throwing myself into another Salchow, blades sinking cleanly into the ice this time on the landing.  The spots grew larger.  It scared me – badly.  I felt my heart beating in my chest, and I pushed off towards the boards.  The black spots began to join together, blocking out almost all of my peripheral vision.  Phichit stood, back towards the rink, on the other side of the boards. By the time I reached him, I couldn’t see anything at all.

“I-I can’t see.” What was happening?  I needed help.  I needed my eyes.

“Did your contacts quit working?” Phichit joked, “You want me to get your glasses out of your bag?”

“No – I can’t see anything.  I-I need help!” I slung my arms over the barrier, my hands shaking. My legs felt like they could no longer support my weight.  Soon, my arms felt like they couldn’t either.  I swam in darkness, my body not responding to my brain.  I don’t remember anything more.

My next memory is of me lying on something hard, not the ground, though, or the ice, something elevated.  Phichit appeared to be sitting close to me; I could only see his hair and one of his dark hands.  I tried to lift my head but immediately felt myself spinning.

“Yuuri, are you awake?” Phichit’s voice echoed.

“Mhmm.”  My mouth felt too dry to speak.

“Celestino, I think he’s awake.”

I attempted to lift my head again, succeeding on the second try.  I was lying on a metal bench beside the boards, bleary fluorescent lights surrounded me.  Celestino stood not far away with his phone to his ear.  He turned towards me and ended the call.

“Yuuri, how do you feel?  Are you okay?” he said, worry evident in his voice.

“I-I think so,” I managed to grit out, my voice rasping on every word.

“You fainted,” he said, “Here, eat this.”  He handed me a peppermint.  “And drink some water.”

Phichit handed me my water bottle.  My hand shook as I reached for it.  Weak, weak weak.

Phichit accompanied me to the campus clinic.  I felt guilty about leaving him in the waiting room with at least five people who appeared to have the flu.

“Have you been eating regularly?” the nurse asked.

I looked past her at the small silver sink in the corner of the room.  “No,” I said.

She sighed.  “Have you been getting enough sleep?”

The poster in the other corner displayed a set of lungs, blackened from the effects of smoking.  “No.”

The next day, Celestino took my keys away from me, my keys to the rink.  Until the GPF ended, I was no longer allowed to practice outside of our scheduled times.  I would have to survive the final week without skating Viktor’s program.

I barely made it through the weekend.  I tossed in my bed all night, every night, quietly, though, so as not to disturb Phichit.  I failed at that too, apparently.  On Sunday, Phichit baled me out.

“I don’t know if this will help,” he said, “but, it worked last time.”  I received a video message on my phone.  I opened it and saw myself – skating Viktor’s program.  I looked sad, very sad, sadder than Viktor did in my video of him.  Normally, I couldn’t stand to watch myself, but this program expressed so many of my thoughts that I could overlook it.  It didn’t replace skating, but watching the video offered me some relief.  On Sunday night, I slept.

On Monday, I felt less tired.  I survived practice.  Celestino smiled, pleased.  That night, I replayed the video, alongside the video of Viktor, until I slept again.  I watched both videos every night that week until I found myself watching them in Sochi, the night before the short program competition.  The light from my phone washed the standard hotel room in a faint blue glow.  I felt sad, alone, but healthy.  I guessed that was all that really mattered.

I woke up the next morning refreshed and ready to compete.  I hoped Viktor would notice me, but it would be okay if he didn’t, I told myself.  It was probably better that way after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Yuuri's Exhibition Skate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfnMvo87fQU) \- "Waving Through a Window" from Dear Evan Hansen


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter is more angsty than the others!
> 
> Also, in case you were wondering, this fic will be diverging from the canon story line. You'll see that a little bit in this chapter and more in the upcoming ones.

Blood rushing.  A waterfall.  So loud in my ears.  Deafening.  My hands gripped the red and white boards in front of me.  The knuckles turned white.  Something tapped my shoulder.  A man – hazel eyes, blonde hair.  Chris.  His mouth moved.  What did he say?  It moved again.

“Yuuri, it’s warmup time.  You ready?”

Oh.  I nodded my head.  I watched Chris remove his blade guards and step onto the ice.  My hands barely shook as I did so as well.

Then, he was there too.

Viktor.

Just across the rink.  On the same ice, at the same time as me.  His eyes uncovered for all the world to see, I knew, but I made sure not to look at them or anywhere near the vicinity of his face, really.  I tried to focus on my own warm up, every now and then, golden blades catching my eye.  I managed to land my quad toe loop.  Viktor was right there, right there, though.  Did he see me?  He was probably too focused on his own routine.

Then, he was gone.  I stepped off the ice, Celestino waiting on me.  The rustle of my jacket.  The cold metal rim of a chair.  The dark laces on my skates.  I didn’t see Viktor.  No – wait, there, sitting, unlacing his skates, his back turned towards me.

_Viktor will see me skate today_ , I thought.  I felt warm, warm from my toes to the roots of my hair, a pleasant warmth.

“Good to see you smiling,” Celestino said, next to me.  I would have normally felt anxious, apparently Celestino noticed as well that I wasn’t.  All my nervous energy seemed to have melted into the practice skate.

Viktor would see me skate that day.  He would see me skate.  I was skating second.  Chris circled the rink, already waiting for his name to be called.

Viktor stood up and walked into the hallway.

I watched the black double doors swing back and forth.  A few minutes passed.  He didn’t walk back in.  I turned my head back towards the ice as Chris flew past the boards in front of us.  Viktor still hadn’t returned. 

Celestino watched Chris intently, his hand on his chin; he hadn’t noticed Viktor leave.  Chris’s program carried on into its second half; thick, rich music, fluid movements clouded the arena’s atmosphere.  Viktor hadn’t returned to watch it.

He wouldn’t be returning until it was time for his own program.

Viktor wouldn’t see me skate.  He hadn’t returned.  He wasn’t going to return.  He wouldn’t see me skate.  That was . . .

 

. . . Okay.

           

It really was okay.  I still felt warm, not as warm as before, but not anxious either.  It was okay.  I couldn’t expect Viktor to ignore his own warmup to watch me skate.  We didn’t even know each other.  I hadn’t watched the earlier skaters myself.  I just so happened to be skating directly before him for the short program.  A stroke of bad luck.  I had just never considered the possibility that he wouldn’t see me skate.  It was okay.  He could probably see everything from the screen in the outside room anyway.

Celestino and the others standing near us began clapping, loud, close, followed by the audience in the stands.  I hadn’t noticed the end of Chris’s program.  I stood and walked towards the boards.  This was it.  My debut at the Grand Prix Final.  It didn’t feel the way I thought it would; it didn’t feel as – important – as I thought it would be.  Anticlimactic, almost, yet oddly calming.  I thought I had made it to a turning point, but I hadn’t.  This was just another competition.

Celestino walked up beside me, giving me a sharp nod, his long hair swaying behind him.  We had both worked for so many hours to reach this point; I hoped I wouldn’t disappoint him.  I handed him my blade guards as I stepped onto the ice.

My light blue and white sleeves billowed in my peripheral vision as I skated to the center of the rink.  My hair fluttered in my eyes.  I had worn it down again.  It had felt so – freeing – during my exhibition skate in Canada.  I needed to feel like that again for this performance.

I brought one hand to my cheek, looking down towards the ice as I crossed my feet to cast my starting pose.  The first soft [piano notes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SrvreW-E80) drifted over me as I turned, fanning my arms out.  The melody began, meandering and peaceful.  Piano music had always calmed my nerves, and this piece was no exception.  I melted into the movements, nearly closed my eyes during a spin.  I let my mind wander.  I longed for something, a turning point, a climax, something.  Maybe, when I opened my eyes, my contacts would be gone.  Everyone would see them and . . . and it would be okay.  Viktor would see them.  He would like them.  I steadied my ankles for an Ina Bauer, arching my back and feeling the welcome stretch along my abdominals.  The music built to a breaking point as I increased my speed and launched into a quad toe, triple toe combination, the satisfying thud sounding in my ears as I landed the jump.  Viktor would see my eyes and watch me skate, and we would be happy.  I wished I had never decided to wear the contacts at all.  Maybe, the day I had first seen Viktor, I had gone to meet him.  He greeted me in Russia, young, snowflakes in his long hair, smiling.  We had known each other for a long time.  I always watched him skate, and he always watched me.  And we were happy.  I entered a camel spin, one leg extended behind me, carrying me through, then a step sequence as the music took on a minor tone.  The notes became more forceful, broken, yet still light, to match the rhythm of my blades as I danced across the ice.  Viktor danced beside me, fluttering, spinning, coming close then pulling away again.  We circled each other, barely touching, dreaming of something more.  As the melody picked up again, he held my hand for a death spiral, my hair brushing the ice.  We pushed away from each other to perform simultaneous triple axels.  I entered my final spin, and he spun around me, holding my waist.  As we slowed to a stop, I looked up into his blue eyes, marking my final pose, one hand reaching out into the air after him as he faded away, the other on my ribs, over my heart.

My extended arm shook with the force of my breaths as the audience cheered.  I had skated a clean program.  I had skated a clean program at the Grand Prix Final.  It was half over.  It was half over, and it was okay.  My legs felt like they would collapse under me.  Celestino hugged me as I stepped off the ice and supported me as we made our way to the kiss and cry.  My score: 90.45.  I had never scored that high for a short program before.  My name on the screen appeared just below Chris’s.  Second place.  Viktor would be the last person to skate – which meant that I would finish the short program in no lower than third place.  Third place.  That was on the podium.  Celstino was shaking me by the shoulder, his mouth moving, words of praise, but I couldn’t hear them.

Viktor stepped onto the ice.

His costume was a dark blue, almost black, high collared jacket. Bright blue crystals draped across his chest and down his thighs.  His silver hair shone above the dark colors.

We quickly moved out of the kiss and cry.  I found a place to stand out of the way but still near the boards.  It wasn’t even a question: Celestino knew that I would stay to watch Viktor, no matter my standings or exhaustion.  The announcer called Viktor’s name over the speakers.  The crowd became completely silent as he skated to the center of the ice, all anticipation.

The first [notes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXGR3dAXr04&app=desktop) of the music cut across the arena, light and happy, easily recognizable as “The Bluebird” from “Sleeping Beauty.”  It was an odd choice for Viktor this late in his career, but anything that accompanied his skating became instantly enthralling.  He flew across the ice, movements impossibly graceful, accompanying the trills in the music with one of the most complicated step sequences I had ever seen.  His blades seemed to never touch the ground.  As the music built, his repertoire of quads and triples filled in the spaces between his seamless choreography, his arms lifting with every jump, like a bird.  As he entered his final spin, the music became light again.  He stepped out of his spin with a few more light steps, nearly hopping over the ice, before his movements faded to a stop with the music.

The audience roared. There was just no comparison between him and every other skater in the arena.  The blue crystals on his costume shimmered as he knelt to lift a stuffed poodle off the ice, kissing it on the nose and waving to the audience.  I made sure to stare only at his feet as he turned towards our side of the rink.  Soon enough, his back faced me once again.  He skated to the opposite side of the ice, meeting his coach at the boards, along with the young blonde boy who I had met at Skate Canada and had since learned his name, Yuri Plisetsky, the Junior Grand Prix champion.  Viktor paused to slide on his blade guards, blue crystals glittering in the bright lights, glowing, so far removed from everyone around him.

And so, I found myself leaving the arena that day in third place.  It was dark outside, the warm streetlights shining through the glass paneled wall of the atrium of the arena.  As I shifted through the crowd of reporters, spectators, and skaters, between myself and the door, a bright flash of red caught the edge of my vision.  I flicked my head up instinctively to see silver hair.

Viktor.  He was standing just beside me, close enough to touch, his back facing me once again.  It was the oddest feeling.  Frustration and longing intermingled.   I stood so, so close to him.  I wanted to reach out, talk to him, look into his eyes, see them, really see them, see his reaction, feel my own, but I couldn’t.  I couldn’t move at all, every muscle in my body frozen, the crowd writhing, twisting around me, oblivious to it all.  I knew he would keep walking; I would never have the courage to even tap him on the shoulder.

Then, he said my name. 

“Yuri.”  His accent rolling the “r.”  My muscles spasmed, quivering.  I stared at his back.  He said it again.  “Yurrri.”

He turned, then, he was facing me.  _Don’t look at his eyes, don’t look at his eyes, don’t look at his eyes._   I focused my eyes on his shoulder, trying to exude at least a semi-normal appearance.

“Oh – hello. Would you like a photo?” he asked.

I couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak.  How had he just decided to talk to me out of the blue?

But wait – huh?  His words: photo?  I guessed I would have liked a photo with him.  An odd way to begin a conversation, though. 

Something, or rather, someone, shoved me to the side from behind, my glasses would have hit the floor if I had been wearing them.  Light hair and blue jacket: Yuri Plisetsky.  Viktor quipped something to him in Russian before turning his stance back towards me.

“Would you like a commemorative photo?” he repeated.

That’s when it all fell into place.  He had been talking to the other Yuri the entire time.  He hadn’t recognized me, thought I was just another fan in the crowd. In that moment, I felt worthless.

I had skated right before him, and he still didn’t recognize me.  I had watched him for years, collected every poster, memorized every program.  He had been my inspiration.  There were only six other people in the competition, and he didn’t even know that I was there.  I was his soulmate and I was standing right in front of him, and he couldn’t even tell that I existed.

Something broke that day.  I can still clearly feel the noisy crowd, the blue glass windows, the darkness outside, the red on the jacket facing me.  I had thought he was my soulmate.  I felt stupid.  Why had I expected someone that I didn’t even know to recognize me?  I thought of every other time, every other person in my life who had failed to remember me.  It was normally my own fault – for wanting to be invisible.  But, I had never, never, not once wished to be invisible on the ice.  It was the one place where I wanted people to see me.  So, when it happened there too, I couldn’t help but let it hit me.  I ripped my soul out that day and turned my back on Viktor, walking towards the doors.  If he didn’t recognize me before, he would know me then, even only as the fan who turned away.  The futility of my life hit me all at once.  No matter how hard I worked, no matter how much of my life I gave up, it would never matter.  The one thing that I had dreamed about for years broke; my dream had been broken.

* * *

 

My next memory is of the dark sheets on my bed after I had crawled under them.  I didn’t cry.  I couldn’t cry.  It was just self-pity.  I was overreacting.  This was all my own fault.  I hated it.  I didn’t call Phichit; it would have caused him unnecessary worry.  I just lay on the bed, watching the red numbers on the clock glow, waiting for morning.

Morning broke, and I didn’t want to skate.  The day before repeated itself with twisted details.  Celestino and I walked from the hotel to the arena early.  I slipped on my skates and rushed onto the ice so that I could practice before Viktor arrived.  My legs felt stiff, every movement forced.  I felt like I should have been outside in the cold but sunny weather rather than inside under the bleak rink lighting.  I didn’t land a single jump.  Celestino consoled me, saying that I was just a little bit off that morning.  He must have thought it was my nerves.  We walked out of the arena just as Viktor walked in.  I made sure to keep a large distance between myself and him.  If he recognized me then, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it.

We ordered lunch at a café beside the hotel.  I ordered soup.  I stirred the thick liquid around and around.  Every other minute, I lifted the spoon in an attempt to stomach even a tiny sip of soup, but I just couldn’t stand to put the hot mixture into my mouth.  The action seemed to appease any qualms Celestino might have about my appetite, though.

I was supposed to take a nap at the hotel, but I couldn’t sleep.  I ended up thumbing through social media to pass the time, which was a mistake.  Everyone at home hoped that I would make the podium after my placement the day before, even though I wasn’t sure if I wanted to anymore.  Doing so would just put me closer to Viktor.

Soon enough, we had arrived, once again, at the arena.  I stretched in a secluded hallway while the first three long programs took the ice.  Celestino walked me to the on-ice warmup.  Viktor arrived last again, just like the day before.  Keeping my distance, I tried to ignore him completely and succeeded as much as could be expected, maintaining just enough awareness of him to avoid a collision on the ice.  Something felt off, though.  I felt watched, and it put me on edge – which was stupid because, of course, people were watching me.  It was a competition with an audience after all.  I couldn’t shake the feeling, though.  Everyone would see my lackluster skating and wonder how I had ever made it to the final.  I wished for it to be over.

Chris and Viktor exited the rink, leaving the ice solely to me.  I could feel my hands shaking, my vision blurring even with my contacts.  The brightest part of me hoped that this performance could still go well, even after everything that had happened, even when my rational mind told me that I had already failed.

I skated to the center of the ice, and when the music began, I couldn’t feel it.  I couldn’t feel anything.  My muscle memory of the routine saved me.  I performed the movements, but I couldn’t really feel them.  I searched for the part of myself that felt the music and the rhythm of movement, and I couldn’t find it.  It wasn’t there, like it had been cut off.  It was gone.  Nothing.  Nothing was there.  It scared me.  The light music filling the arena mocked the terror inside me.  A fundamental part of myself was just gone.  I could still do it, though; I would finish.  I managed to make it through the triple axel, nailing it.  I put a hand down on the following triple combination.  I fell on the quad Salchow and every jump afterwards.  I landed on my hip, my thigh, my knee, my shoulder, striking the cold ice again and again and again.  I finished the program.  I finished it.  I held my ending pose, the bruises blooming over my body.  I still felt watched.  I looked at the stands directly in front of me and could tell that at least one person was indeed staring at me intently, but I couldn’t make out the form with my increasingly blurry vision.  I couldn’t bring myself to wave to that person or the audience, though, and that made me a bad person in addition to a failure.  The few people who had actually shown up that day to watch me wouldn’t even get to see me wave. 

Celestino met me at the boards, shielding me from the cameras in case I needed to cry.  I didn’t cry.  I still couldn’t believe that I had actually failed my skate that badly until I saw my score from the kiss and cry.  142.14.  Probably the lowest free skate score in GPF history.  I still felt watched.  I needed to leave, get out and away.

But, Viktor would be skating his program in a few minutes, the program that I had learned, that I had loved.  I had failed my own program, and he had failed to notice me.  I knew, then, that I would probably never see him skate in person again.  I would stay and watch this program, then say goodbye to my dream forever.

During Chris’s performance, I found a spot in the stands with Celestino, high up, looming over the rink, out of range of any accidental eye contact.  When Viktor took the ice, the audience hushed, once again, in anticipation.  He wore the costume that I had seen in the video, beautiful, magenta and gold.  The loud opera music, ingrained in my mind, began playing as he moved through the opening choreography, sweeping the audience into his performance, looking up into the stands.  I didn’t bother to turn my eyes away.  It didn’t matter, he didn’t look at me anyway.  He repeated the movements exactly as I had learned them.  They were perfect – and yet, they weren’t.  Something was different.  I watched him more closely.  A quad lutz.  That jump hadn’t been in any of his other performances; he had saved it for the final.  A quad flip.  Same prep, same take off, same rotations, same landing, yet his face did not look pleased.  Wait.  His face.  That was it.  His face held such a contrast to the remainder of him that it became disorienting.  I knew from his previous performances that he was supposed to look sad, but this was something else.  This sadness had been etched into his very features until it became horrible to view.  And so, this too mocked me.  Viktor brought out this strong of a sadness in his performance, when I had lost all the emotion in mine.  And yet, he couldn’t have possibly been sadder than me on that day, in that moment.  As he approached the end of the program, the emotion on his face grew to a climax, but when he broke his pose, it all evaporated, his well recognizable smile breaking out, completely unaffected.

Celestino and I slipped out of the stands while Viktor was receiving his score. I couldn’t make myself stay for the medal ceremony or gala performances; I almost broke down as we walked through the hallway.  When Celestino stopped to talk with a few reporters, I fled to the nearest bathroom and called my mom, thinking that her voice would be calming.

* * *

 

When I finally made it back to my room, I removed my contacts, fell on the bed, and replayed Yuri Plisetsky’s scathing words from the bathroom repeatedly in my mind until I slept.

I dreamed that I was Viktor, skating his long program at the GPF.  I could see everything.  The bright ice, my magenta arms swinging in front of me, the single strand of silver hair across my eyes.  The audience cheered for me.  I knew I would please them.  My coach was happy with me, yet, I was not pleased with myself.  I felt a familiar warmth in my chest, but it was not enough to outweigh the feeling that I had disappointed, no, devastated someone irreparably.  I couldn’t skate my program the way that I had envisioned, but I pushed through.  Everyone applauded, pleased.  No one noticed that anything had been wrong.  I had hoped it would be different, but it wasn’t.  The same as always.  The same as always.

My phone’s ringtone woke me.  I rolled around in bed, searching for it and, hit the green button.

_Yuuri, we have an hour until the banquet,_ Celestino said, _you need to get ready._

The banquet.  The banquet.  I had forgotten about the banquet.  I didn’t know if I could make myself go.  “Coach, I really don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to go?”

I heard a sigh over the line. _Come for twenty minutes, say something to Morooka, and then you can leave.  I’ll handle everything else for you.”_

“Okay, thank you, coach.”

_Chao, chao._

I dropped my phone on the mattress.  A compromise.  I could survive for twenty minutes, surely.  I hoped.  One more event to survive, then I could go home.

* * *

 

Gold.  Golden lighting washing the walls and carpet.  Golden platters filled with hors d'oeuvres on a gold accented table.  Golden flutes of champagne.  The entire banquet room was filled with gold.

My suit fabric chaffed the palms of my hands, the dense material stifling with heat.  Morooka had been kind to me during our interview, not overly prodding with his questions, but he could only do so much to lessen the impact of my final score, more than one hundred points below Viktor’s.  He had ended the interview when my voice began to waver, leaving me alone in the room full of people. 

Ten more minutes, then I could leave.  I stood next to a grand piano in the corner that no one was playing, the music in the room piped in from speakers scattered across the ceiling.  The black and white keys tempted me to play them myself, calm my nerves, but I didn’t.  From the center of the room, Viktor’s silver hair glinted in the golden lights.  He stood next to Chris, both chatting with a rep from a mutual sponsor. 

I grabbed a flute of champagne from a nearby table.  Nine more minutes.  I could survive for nine more minutes with a little champagne.  Viktor began dancing with Chris as the golden lights dimmed, their movements fluid.  Or, perhaps, I wouldn’t survive at all.  I lifted another flute of champagne off the gold accented table.  The piano keys next to me looked ever more inviting.  My fingers slid over them as I sat down on the bench and began to play softly.  No one noticed, [the music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LXl4y6D-QI) light and calming, Debussy, like my short program, tucked away in the dark corner of the room, drowned out by track from the speakers.  The piece ended before I wanted it to. 

Five more minutes.  I felt watched again, every movement scrutinized; normally alcohol helped with that.  Five more whole minutes. 

I grabbed a third flute of champagne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuri's short program: [Reverie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SrvreW-E80) by Debussy  
> Viktor's short program: [Bluebird Pas de Deux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXGR3dAXr04&app=desktop) from "The Sleeping Beauty" by Tchaikovsky; note: Viktor's music arrangement would be different than that in this video, more fitting to a skating program than a ballet.  
> The piece that Yuuri plays on the piano: [Clair de Lune](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LXl4y6D-QI) by Debussy, [this](https://allpoetry.com/poem/8538095-Clair-De-Lune-by-Paul-Verlaine) is the poem that inspired the song if you would like to read it as well. There is another translation on wikipedia, but I liked this one better.
> 
> So, I'm posting this a week late!! I'm so sorry! I moved to a different apartment, and moving just ate up much more of my time than I anticipated. I'm hoping to get the next chapter out this coming week.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shows up three months late! As always, I appreciate every kudo and, especially, every comment that I receive. <3

My soulmate has brown eyes.

Or, at least that’s what Georgi told me at practice on Monday. 

My first thought was that I was too old to believe in such things.  Georgi had acted absolutely shocked that I didn’t know much about soulmates, especially since I had “the eyes,” as he called them, but he tended to romanticize most situations. 

My second thought was that it might be interesting to have a soulmate.  Would we look alike?  Enjoy the same things?  Have the same favorite foods?

My third thought was an attempt to picture what my soulmate might look like.  As I practiced my routine, I imagined another person skating beside me.  He had brown eyes and a soothing voice, but that was all that I could distinguish about him.  I imagined leaving the rink with him after practice and eating dinner with him in the café across the street.  I imagined myself with two blue eyes.  No one stared at me in the café, except my soulmate, who looked at me in the same way that I remembered my mother looking at me years before. 

My fourth thought was that I wanted a soulmate whether they were real or not. 

* * *

Math homework was very definitely real, however, and very boring.  I had only managed to work two problems in ten minutes, the smell of steaming vegetables wafting from the kitchen to my seat at the table enticing my distraction.  It brought to mind the café near the rink.

“Yakov, do you think my eyes are actually blue or brown?”  Yakov stood at the stove, stirring a pot of stew that contained all the necessary ingredients for a young skater.

“Blue.  Your mother had blue eyes.”

I was shocked; he actually responded!  Normally, he would just yell my name or ignore me completely.  From her seat across the table, Lilia threw me her warning glare, in which she seemed to grow at least six inches taller even when sitting down.

I spoke before I could before I could heed her warning, though. “So, that means I really do have a soulmate?”

“What?”  The volume of Yakov’s voice spiked.

“You said that my eyes were actually blue, so my soulmate’s eyes must be brown.” Lilia continued to watch me silently.

“This is coming from Georgi, isn’t it?” Yakov said.

“Well – yes – but, it could be true.  It would make sense.”

Yakov sighed. “Get back to your work, Vitya.”

I wanted to keep talking, to ask why they had never told me about the _meaning_ of my eyes, but Yakov’s patience had worn too thin too quickly.  Maybe, Georgi really had just made it all up.  Lilia reached across the table and tapped my notebook, once, twice, three times, and I lifted my pencil once more.

During dinner, Lilia and Yakov discussed a few of the rising novice skaters.  Then, they discussed an old building that would be knocked down across town.  Then politics.  The excitement that I had felt earlier that day wore down into exhaustion, as I remained relatively quiet.  Neither of them attempted to speak with me.

After cleaning the dishes, I walked into my room and sat on my bed.  Makkachin sat snuggled next to me, her small form curled against my leg.

I didn’t know what to do.  Normally, my schoolwork required more time to complete or we ate dinner later in the evening, giving me just enough time to shower before I passed out in bed.  But, that day, I had finished my schoolwork under the all-seeing eye of Lilia Baranovskaya, and there was nothing left to do.  I wanted to skate, that’s all I ever wanted, but I was too tired and couldn’t think of a way to break into the rink that late at night anyway.

It would have been nice to have a soulmate.  It would have given me someone to talk with, to go places with.  My circle of friends had dwindled to almost nothing in the years since I had begun homeschooling in order to accommodate my skating schedule.  I still saw a few of them occasionally that I had known in my elementary days, but they had better friends that they saw every day at high school.  It felt like the world was sliding past me while I skated, confined to the rink.  I loved skating, I had never questioned that, but I wondered if it was worth everything that I had given up.

My eyes felt funny.  I walked over to my desk to peer in the mirror on the wall.  They were red, causing my blue eye to appear brighter and contrast more with my right one.  I must have been crying, so I stopped.  I hated crying. 

A knock sounded against my door, and it opened to reveal Yakov.

“Look, Vitya, you’ve been in here for hours; you can come out.”

“I was just about to lie down.”

He stared at me for a minute.  “This is still about that soulmate gossip, isn’t it?”  When I didn’t say anything, he sat down on the bed next to me and continued, “Look . . . if it’s that important to you, we’ll look for your soulmate together.”

I looked up.  It wasn’t like Yakov to say anything like that.  I didn’t even think he would care about soulmates.  He wore a blank expression on his face, even as his permanent frown lines persisted.  He looked old; even when I was that young, he was old.

“So, it’s true then?” I said.

“It could be; it could not be.  I think you misunderstood me earlier,” he cleared his throat, “your eyes aren’t blue, they’re both of those colors, and you don’t ever have to change that.”  And . . . that was a nice thought, that Yakov didn’t care what color my eyes were.

“Okay,” I said, “But, it would be nice to have a soulmate, wouldn’t it?”

He stared at me for another minute, his hand resting on one of the bedposts, then sighed. “Maybe you’re more like Georgi than I thought.”

* * *

The studio was small, not the large span with white backdrops and ten assistants that I had imagined.  I stepped over thick wires as we meandered through the dim lighting of the room.  Yakov was there as well.  He stood in the background as the photographer posed me in front of a light blue backdrop, turning my head one way or another, framing my shoulders, just so.  Lilia would have loved him. 

The Junior Grand Prix gold, something that I had only dreamed about before that year, hung around my neck.  It flashed again and again with every photo.  As far as photoshoots go, it wasn’t what I had expected, but I was so proud of my medal that I could have been taking pictures in a literal garbage dump and it wouldn’t have mattered.

It had been only my second year to enter the Junior Grand Prix at all.  And, I had won.  I could finally believe in my future, a future that I wanted, instead of the one that had seemed so limited before.  Everything felt like it had been worth it.

The photographer snapped a few photos of me lacing up my skates, my hair thrown over one shoulder.  Those pictures ended up being my favorite shots when we clicked through them on the large monitor in his office.  I hoped that, maybe, my soulmate would see them in the magazine and try to find me.

A month later, Yakov brought home one of the magazines.  The few pages displaying my photoshoot looked nice and everything that Lilia had deemed “appropriate.”  The gloss finish glinted in the light as I flipped through them.  The pictures with my skates looked just as perfect as I remembered, my new golden blades contrasting with the neutral background.  It was a little odd to see myself in a magazine, even a small local one. 

But, something was wrong, other than that.  Something was wrong.

“Yakov, did you look at this?”

He glanced away from the evening news.  “No, I approved everything beforehand, so I mainly brought that home for you.  Why?”

“They just - I think they only printed the pictures of half of my face.  Isn’t that odd?”

“Huh?  Hand it here, Vitya, and let me look.”

He flipped through the pages rather quickly, as I looked over his shoulder. My head was always turned in each of the pictures, or my hair fell over half of my face.  The third time looking through it, I realized that none of the pictures showed my right eye.

“It’s my eyes,” I said.

I didn’t know what to think about it.  I wasn’t really angry, mainly puzzled.  The pictures made it seem like I only had blue eyes.  What was the point of that?

“You’re right, Vitya.  It’s your eyes,” Yakov said.

“But, I don’t really even look like that.”

“Well, there’s not much we can do here.  Apparently, your eyes are part of their marketing strategy.  Next time you have pictures taken, we’ll tell them that you only want pictures of both your eyes printed,” he said, but he continued to glare at the magazine briefly before handing it back to me.

My odd eye color had never been an issue until that point in my life.  Before, the cameras at competitions had filmed me either too far away or in too low quality to pick up my eye color clearly.  To some extent, I could understand how the different colors would be off-putting in a magazine, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t actually me in those photos.  It looked like someone else with my same hair and skates, but not me.  And, apparently blue eyes were more acceptable than brown ones.  My soulmate had brown eyes.  He wouldn’t recognize me without them.

That spring, when I skated at the Junior World Championships, I made sure the cameras caught both of my eyes every time.

* * *

After I won the Junior World Championships, I actually received fanmail, not much, but some.  I was so glad that I had convinced Yakov to set up the address for me.  He said that all the attention had gone to my head, but he put no real bite behind the words.

I received about forty letters total after Worlds, including a poodle plush and a hand drawn picture of me and Makkachin.  I decided to read one letter a day, so that it took me over a month to read through them all.

Most of the letters had been sent by novice or other junior skaters, complementing my programs or my costumes, wishing me luck.  My grandparents had sent one of the letters.  I opened it on the sixth day.  They told me to visit them soon since I was on the off-season.  My grandmother promised to make homemade borsht.

On the eighth day, a Wednesday, I was dancing.  I always practiced ballet with Lilia and Georgi in the mornings in the small studio above the skating rink.  During our cool down stretches, Georgi talked about the girl that he was going to ask to the spring dance at his school.  I had never been to a school dance before, so I was curious.  It sounded like so much fun.  I could picture myself dancing, preferably with another boy who also had blue and brown eyes.

I asked Georgi if there was a way that I could go to the dance, since I didn’t go to school.  Georgi responded with a little too much enthusiasm and said he would ask about it. Lilia seemed to approve of the idea as well.

To say that I went home excited that day would have been an understatement.  Yakov had to tell me several times before dinner to stop “bouncing off the walls.”  I just couldn’t peel my mind away from the dance and all the people that I would meet at it.  I nearly forgot to read my letter for the day.

But then, I did, I did read it - and it was from my soulmate.

My heart almost beat out of my chest after I read the first line.  The letter was handwritten - I could actually see my soulmate’s handwriting.  He had written my name in Cyrillic even though it appeared that Russian was not his first language.  He had touched the piece of paper that I was holding. 

I knew it.  I knew he had seen me skate at World’s.  He was a skater too; that was perfect.  I could ask him to the dance, or maybe he could ask me to his school’s dance.

It didn’t take me long to flash read the remainder of the letter.  When I reached the end, though - there was no name.  He hadn’t signed it.  I looked back through it again.  I kept thinking of him as a boy, but there wasn’t anything in the letter to even indicate that much.  I picked back up the envelope - some kind of foreign characters covered one side of it, Chinese maybe, and dog stickers, cute blue dog stickers.  So, my soulmate loved dogs too.  That was perfect. He was perfect, so perfect.  The paper and envelope felt warm beneath my fingers, like I could feel the love sealed into it.

“Yakov!”  I ran down the hallway with the envelope.  “Where was this mailed from?”

“What?”  He eyed me suspiciously then glanced down at the envelope that I had shoved into his hands.  “You’re not allowed to respond to anything, remember?” 

“But, this one is special.”

“And what is so special about it?”

“Err - um, well,” I considered making up something, but I thought he might actually be more willing to help me if he knew the truth, “my soulmate sent me that letter.”  I counted the seconds until his reaction.

He sighed.  “Your soulmate sent you this letter?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re really sure?”

“Yes, yes ,yes.”

“You know, sometimes people who write fanmail lie abou-“

“He didn’t lie,” I interrupted. My soulmate would never lie to me.  That was impossible.  He was a dog person.

“And how did you decide that?”

“I can feel it – in the paper.  I can feel his writing in my soul.”

Then . . . Yakov laughed – and laughed and laughed.  If I hadn’t felt so insulted, I might have recorded his rare laughing fit.  As it was, I stood in shock and watched him double farther and farther over.  Lilia walked in the front door and came to stand beside me.

“You’ve finally pushed him over the edge, Vitya,” she said.

“Lilia,” Yakov managed to huff out between laughs, “he got – a letter – from his soulmate.  He could feel the – hah – the paper in his soul.  That doesn’t sound very comfortable, Vitya.”

“I did not say that!”

Lilia just patted my shoulder until Yakov’s fit subsided.

Finally, he straightened his shoulders and said, “Okay, I’ll try to find out where it was mailed from, but without a return address, I don’t know how much I’ll actually learn.  It sounds like your – “soulmate” – might not be ready to meet you yet.”

Oh - I hadn’t thought of that, but it couldn’t hurt to at least try to send him - or her - a return letter.

“But let me read through it first.”

I pulled the letter out of its warm and safe hiding place in my pocket and handed it, albeit reluctantly, to Yakov.

* * *

Every day at practice, Georgi elaborated on his plans for the school dance.  His date had found him a tie that matched her dress.  He brought it in his skating bag to show me, a deep magenta, a good color for Georgi.  I spent the remainder of practice imagining a brown eyed boy dancing with me in deep magenta, smiling and laughing.  He was beautiful and maybe just a little taller than me, and maybe also a little shy.  For the next few days, magenta hid just around the edges of everything that I saw.

The day that Georgi finally said that the school office had approved for me to attend the dance (so long as I bought tickets for myself and my date), I slipped away from the rink during lunch and ran to the nearest department store.  I had seen them in the window earlier that week, two magenta bow ties. As soon as I walked through the sliding doors, I grabbed them and purchased them immediately with the entirety of my allowance for that month. It was only as I stuffed them into my bag that I realized it might have been a bad idea to steal Georgi’s color, but I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to return them.  Everything needed to be perfect for my soulmate, and magenta was the perfect color.  

Four days later, Yakov called me into his office during warmup. “I traced your letter back to a post office in Kyushu, Japan, but it’s an office that serves a rather large area, so without any more information, that’s as much as I can tell you.”

“But, there’s only so many ice skaters in Japan, right? That should narrow it down to just a few people and then we could as. . .”

“No, Vitya,” he cut me off, “No. This is as far as it goes.”

No, that couldn’t be as far as it went.  He was my soulmate.  I couldn’t just not ever meet him.  “But . . . I . . I wanted to go to the dance with him.”

“Vitya, look – this letter is from Japan.  Even if you could contact him, he still wouldn’t be able to go to this dance with you.  He’s from another country; you don’t even know if this is real.”

“No. We could – he could-” He had to be real.

“No, he couldn’t,” Yakov replied.

I turned to leave Yakov’s office.  But, Yakov stepped around his desk, walked over to me, and wrapped me in a hug, tracksuit and all.

“Vitya, what’s really wrong?” he asked.

And what was wrong?  Why was this so important to me, when I had never cared about it before?  It might not even be real.  I didn’t know.  I didn’t know what was wrong, but I didn’t really want to find out.  All I wanted was to find my soulmate and go to the dance.  It did sound dumb after all.

“Nothing,” I said, but I found myself holding him tighter than before.  My face felt hot against his polyester jacket, and for the first time in years, I realized I was crying.  I made myself stop, and I repeated “nothing” once more, before peeling away.

“Okay, well, I’m here if you change your mind,” he replied.

A week passed, and it was time for the school dance.  I didn’t go.  Georgi told me all about it afterwards anyway, about how his date ended up dancing with another boy, whose tie didn’t match her dress, for the majority of the dance.  I stuffed the magenta ties in the bottom drawer of my dresser.

My soulmate had said to wait and watch for him, so I did - at every single competition that I attended - but I never saw him, not once, not anywhere.

When I was eighteen, what would have been my last year in school, I requested permission to attend the school dance again - alone.  I met a boy there.  He had blue eyes, like my left one.  He was tall and handsome, sturdy and confident as we danced, and I had fun.  Other boys – and girls – tried to cut in during each song, but he chose to dance with me again and again for the majority of the night.  When the dance ended, he turned to leave without asking for my number, so I stopped him and asked for his.  And . . . he turned me down.

“Tonight was fun, but we’re too different from each other.  I hope you understand?”

No, I didn’t understand.

“You’re a figure skater; you’re pretty to look at.  Your eyes are kind of um . . . disorienting, but you’re like a model.  Umm, but we just don’t have a lot in common.”

I still didn’t understand, but I let him go, or rather, I walked past him and returned to my car alone. 

Over the next few years, I learned that I could meet as many people as I wanted to, but I always eventually ended up alone, walking back into my empty apartment.

* * *

I had run out of ideas.  I knew it would happen eventually; that didn’t mean I was prepared for it.  And, I was running out of time, in every sense of the word.

“Viktor, get off the ice.  You’re taking up too much room to be doing nothing.”  Yakov’s voice was the one thing about him that never aged.

As I glided toward the boards, Yura flew past me in a fury.  He looked so scrawny in his black practice clothes.  I had probably looked like that too, though, once upon a time.

Old Nikolai sat at the top of the stands, his gaze following Yura around the rink.  Yura should have been in a mildly better mood, what, with his grandfather in St. Petersburg.  I climbed the stairs to sit beside Nikolai, if only to put some distance between myself and Yakov.

“Viktor,” he said, “Why aren’t you skating?”

And, what a lovely way to begin a conversation, with the one subject I dreaded discussing, but the most obvious one to talk about.

“I can’t think of anything to skate to.  So, here I am.”

Nikolai looked back towards the ice as Yura landed a jump.  “You’ve never had this problem before, have you?”

“No, not really.”  Before that season, I had always been faced with the opposite dilemma of having too many ideas but only two programs.  Although, admittedly, for the past few years, I had been recycling some of my older ideas.

“Hmm.  Yurachka never knows what to skate to – or, well, he never knows what to skate to that would be appropriate.  Coach Yakov always selects something for him instead.”

“Yes, that’s all fine for Yura, but Yakov isn’t going to just select something for me.”

“He might if you ask him.”

“No, I’m too old and have been here too long for him to do that.”

Nikolai laughed.  “Then, skate to something that makes you feel younger.”

“I don’t know if anything would.”

He turned to look at me.  “You’re not old, Viktor.  I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

And, indeed, as I sat in the stands, watching Yura glide across the ice repeatedly, the more a program about my younger self seemed like an idea that I could grasp.  What was important to me when I was young?  My mom, my grandparents.  I had already skated programs dedicated to each of them.  Skating.  Skating had always been important to me, but I couldn’t really skate a program about skating.  My friends in elementary school.  The one school dance that I was able to attend.  My soulmate.  I hadn’t thought about my soulmate in years; it was almost as if I had forgotten I had one at all.  How different my life would have been if I had met my soulmate.  I could have had someone for years, if only to listen to his voice over the phone.  I could have had a steady partner, maybe even been married.  I might have already retired from figure skating.  A soulmate – it sounded like a fantastic skating program, full of emotion.

“Thank you, Nikolai.”

“Anytime.  All I ask is that you watch out for Yurachka.  He cares about your opinion more than he lets on.”

I looked back out towards the ice, Yura’s thin form flashing from one side of the rink to the other, preparing for a triple flip.

“I know,” I said, “I know.”

I left the rink that afternoon feeling a sense of purpose once again that I hadn’t felt in a long time.  I returned that night when I knew the rink would be empty to begin fleshing out my programs.  My general idea was to make my short program about searching for my soulmate and my long program about actually finding him.

I glided through a couple of steps in the near darkness, sketching out the starting elements.  The short program came easily.  I had been searching for my soulmate for a long time after all.  I already knew which music I wanted to use, and after a few hours, I felt confident about my idea for it. 

The free skate was another story.  I had never actually found my soulmate, so I couldn’t really decide how to portray the happiness I would have felt if I did find him.

It wasn’t until I was walking home in the snow that I realized my free skate wouldn’t focus on happiness.  I had searched for my soulmate for a long time, but I had given up.  I didn’t really believe that I would ever find him.  No, my free skate would be about the loneliness I had felt, skating alone, homeschooling, after my grandmother passed, at the school dance, about reaching for something and watching as it slipped through my fingers.

* * *

I stood on the ice in costume at the end of the day.  Most of the other skaters had already left.  Yakov watched me from the other side of the boards.  I flew past him, prepping for an axel.  He wore a neutral expression for once, instead of a scowl, which meant that he could potentially be pleased.

The costumes for my programs had finally been finished.  I decided to try out the one for “Stammi Vicino” first, as it was my favorite.  The costume was more of a “traditional fit” than what I normally wore, but the loud color created a unique statement. 

Yakov started the opera music over the speaker system as I took my starting pose on the ice.  The program had finally come together.  I believed it could win gold. 

But, it cost me.  I felt like I had to expose a part of myself to the audience that I did not fully understand.  I had skated to personal themes before, but none had ever struck my nerves as this one did.  I felt sad, too sad, out on the ice, and when I finished, I immediately forced myself to cover all my emotion with a smile.

But, surprising the audience, giving them something new to marvel at, was what I lived for.  I just hoped they would recognize the effort that I was relinquishing to what was possibly my last year on the ice.

* * *

I didn’t know about the video at first.  Mila was the one who sent it to me, directly to my phone. 

I clicked on it and saw my free skate – the first time I had ever performed it in costume.  I remember thinking that I should have been angry, but I wasn’t.  I just wasn’t anything.  Nothing.  I couldn’t feel anything, not even anger.

Yura had stayed behind at the rink the day that I had tried out my costumes.  He had recorded my program, almost entirely, then posted it to his private Instagram, which was actually nothing unusual for him.  The video had leaked from his account, though.  He had deleted it as soon as he realized what had happened, but it had been too late.  I, myself, watched the video on youtube.

So, I wasn’t angry. No – but my ability to surprise the audience for the first performance of the season had been taken away from me during what was possibly the last year of my competitive career.  And . . . I didn’t, couldn’t feel anything about it.  The lack of emotion bothered me the most.

I wanted to go out on top – with a bang, but I was fading away.  What would I do if I didn’t skate?  It was all I had ever had, really, the only thing that I was good for.

* * *

My soulmate has brown eyes.

So does Yuuri Katsuki.

But, Yuuri Katsuki was not my soulmate.

“Idiot,” Yura said again, “You don’t even know the _five_ other people competing against you?”

“His eyes were beautiful,” I said.

“He wears contacts.  Of course they look that way.”

“How do you know _that_?”

“ _I_ actually pay attention to the people around me instead of staring up my own ass all the time.”

“So, you only stare at it some of the time, fair enough.”

“Shut up, Viktor.”  Yura was laughably easy to rile up.  “You just insulted him.  Can’t you at least act sorry?”

And, he stormed off.

Well, the situation was . . . interesting.  Yes, that was a good description for it.  _Interesting._

I had never actually managed to so blatantly insult another skater before, at least accidentally, and especially, at this high of a level – not even the ones that I didn’t like, and I definitely didn’t not like Yuuri Katsuki, I just didn’t know him at all. And, that was the problem, wasn’t it?  I didn’t know him.  I didn’t know any of the other skaters, really, except Chris and Cao Bin.  What had happened?  My memory wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t that bad.  I had competed with at least two of the three others in the qualifying competitions.  Why didn’t I remember them?

Then, there was Katsuki.  Yura had to tell me his name.  I didn’t recognize it in the least.  Yuuri Katsuki.  He hadn’t looked me in the eye, yet I still felt the weight of his gaze.  There was something – unsettling, yes that was the word – unsettling about him.  Katsuki hadn’t taken my politeness for what I thought it was.  He had seen right through it, almost immediately.  And, because he had seen through it, Yura had seen through it too.  And he had known.  Katsuki had known that I didn’t know him.  And, suddenly, all my other interactions seemed fake, put on.  Yura was right, I hadn’t paid attention to anyone but myself that season. 

What short program had Katsuki even performed?  Piano music, dark hair on the screen in the warmup room; that must have been him.  But, that’s all I remembered about it.

“Come on, Vitya, you can’t stay here all night,” Yakov yelled from across the room. Typical.

“Coming.”

And, for the first time in my life, I actively tried to forget a person, forget Yuuri Katsuki.  My life was fine, it was fine, it was going to be fine, just like it had always been.  Sure, I was looking at retirement soon, but that would be fine too.  My fame could more than easily land me a stable job after I retired from the competitive circuit.  Except, Yuuri Katsuki made me feel like it wasn’t fine, not at all.  That’s why I wanted to forget him, but also why I couldn’t.

* * *

After dinner, I made a point to step into the same elevator as Yura.  No one was with him, his adverse personality naturally repelling others.  His glare reflected off the shiny metal walls of the elevator as we ascended.

“So, you know Yuuri Katsuki?”  I tried to sound as casual as possible, voice even, pulling on a smile.  Thoughts of Katsuki’s haunting gaze had plagued me through dinner, warring with my plans to forget him.

The glare grew stronger.  “No, like I said, I just don’t have my head stuck up my ass.”

“Come on, Yurachka!”

“Do not call me that.”

“Fine, then, Yura, pretty please, I know you’ve seen him before.”

“And you should have seen him before too, but you didn’t.”

“I know, I know.”  Yura was an angry teenager but also a smart one.  And, this time, he was right.  It still didn’t prevent me from returning him a knowing glare.

He let out a huff, his elbows propped behind him on the safety rail. Then, he caved, much sooner than I had ever expected. “Fine.  He was at Skate Canada.  I spoke to him after the exhibition skate.  If you want to know any more about him, go ask him yourself.”  The elevator door opened, and he stormed down the hall towards his shared room with Yakov, which was, unfortunately, adjacent to my own.  Well, he hadn’t told me any more than what I could google, but he saved me some time, at least.

Skate Canada.  Georgi had gone to Skate Canada, not me.

At the touch of my card key, the lock on my door clicked open, revealing the dark room inside.  I switched on the lights and climbed into bed with my phone, staring at it for a few seconds, the screen dark.

I had managed to restrain myself from researching anything about Katsuki for the entire evening.  How many hours had I lasted?  Four, five?  That was more than long enough.

I typed Katsuki’s name into Google and clicked on the first video that appeared:  **Yuuri Katsuki SP Sochi GPF** , and watched as a dark figure drifted onto the screen, the blue sparkles on the sleeves of his costume glittering in the lights.  I had been correct about the piano music, but incorrect in the utter ignorance in which I had treated the skater.  He danced on the ice, every movement fluid, connected, beautiful.  He pulled the audience into the dreamlike world that he created and suspended us there for the duration of the program.  When he finally stopped moving, the entire atmosphere stopped with him, leaving one with only a memory of what had been.  Dreamlike indeed.  The artistry in his skating stood far above that of any other skater I had seen.

The few seconds of the kiss and cry included at the end of the video showed him almost scared? to receive his third place score.  That was surprising.  He had skated well and deserved it.  He had seemed unshakable during his program.  But, apparently not.

The video ended and another began playing, this time showing Katsuki in a dark gray costume.  He was younger there, but the program was just as beautiful, even with its lower value components.  When that video ended, another began, Katsuki posed on the ice, older this time, and I watched it as well.  It wouldn’t hurt to learn a little more about my competition before the free skate, would it?

After I had exhausted the youtube cache of Yuuri Katsuki videos, I decided that it was a good time to check my phone.  Midnight.  I was supposed to be sleeping.  What Yakov didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

A different skater appeared on the next video.  Crispino – that name sounded remotely familiar.

Hmm – he was good, but that special factor – charisma, maybe, beauty – was missing.  I clicked out of the window.  I couldn’t afford to let this bother me anymore.

* * *

Over the years, I had found that practicing the day of a competition did little for me, but I was excited to see more of Yuuri Katsuki, so I arrived at the rink to practice a tad earlier than usual.  As Yakov and I walked in to the skating complex, the back of Katsuki’s dark blue jacket faced me as he exited another door on the other side of the lobby.  Well, it’s safe to say that I was disappointed, but I would see him that night, or so I consoled myself.  That night, I decided, I would make a point to meet him, no matter how much he felt I had insulted him. 

I still couldn’t keep his reaction from the day before out of my mind.  I thought of him throughout my entire run-through of my free skate, the raw sadness in his gaze.  What would it feel like, I wondered, if I skated “Stammi Vicino” just for him instead of the audience in general?  It would be interesting, maybe even surprising, to perform it just for one person, put a face to the mystery man in the song.  And, “Stammi Vicino” needed that, not to win but to be fulfilling – no – inspired.  It needed it to be inspired.  I had always skated it reaching for my soulmate, but my soulmate was faceless, emotionless.  And, Yuuri Katsuki – he was there and alive and spilling emotion from his pores.  I didn’t know him, but he was just what the program needed to be surprising.

* * *

Similarly to the day before, I stretched until the last minute, entering the arena just in time for the warmup skate.  I had purposefully avoided Katsuki until that point, not wanting to interrupt his routine with whatever desperate conversation would invariably flow from my mouth once I allowed it.  I did not expect to see him chatting with Chris just before they both stepped onto the ice.  I’d have to ask Chris about it later.

I also did not expect Katsuki to so thoroughly ignore his competitors during the warmup.  It was exactly what I had done the day before, but still.  I stared at him for the entire warmup, trying to make him look at me, but he didn’t.  He didn’t look at me, not even once.  Huh – that was just fine.

Instead of exiting back into the hallway to keep my muscles warm, I stayed to watch Katsuki’s performance.  Despite his continued determination to ignore my staring, I was buzzing with excitement to see him perform in person, especially after my youtube marathon.  He already looked stunning in his bright blue costume, his hair pulled back, almost a different person from the one I had met the day before.

Chris approached me at the boards where I was watching Katsuki circle the rink.

“Staying to watch today?” he asked.

“I figured, why not?”  I didn’t turn to look at him, instead opting to watch Katsuki trace the ice carefully as he waited, all poise and control.

Chris turned to watch him as well as his name finally echoed through the arena.  “If Yuuri had another quad in his program, he could challenge you for gold,” he said, “I think he has more potential than anyone else here.”

“Being modest, huh, Chris?”  I turned to wink at him.

But, he only smiled back.  “Only because you’re being so modest yourself, actually noticing that some of the other skaters exist.”  He raised an eyebrow.

Ooo.  That one hit too close to home.  I let the smile drop from my face.  “Chriiis,” I whined.

“Oh, come on, Viktor, you know it’s true.”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”  I frowned at him, but he just smiled back and patted my shoulder.

Katsuki’s music started up, causing us both to turn back towards the ice, the blue figure in the center of the rink perfectly poised to begin his skate.

When he did begin, however, I could immediately tell that something was wrong.  Chris gripped my shoulder.  All Katsuki’s movements were forced and stiff, such a contrast from the videos I had watched.  He completed the components, but they were just that, components, completely separated, disjointed.  His step sequence still managed to flow, and he landed the first jump, but he fell on every jump afterwards.

“Something’s happened.  I don’t know what but something happened, Viktor,” Chris whispered beside me.

When Katsuki skated past our side of the rink, the look on his face was lost, utterly lost.  I would have stopped the program halfway through, but Katsuki pushed on until the end.  I think it pointed to how much work he had really put into the program and how much he had lost.

Why had it happened?  What had happened?  I couldn’t bear to look at his face anymore, it was too painful, but, at the same time, I couldn’t peel my eyes away.  He skated sluggishly away from his place at the center of the rink towards the exit, bringing him closer to where Chris and I stood at the boards.  He looked up for a moment, from where his gaze had been fixed on the ice, blinking a few times, but unmistakably looking directly at me.  In the back of my mind, I realized that he must have finally noticed my pointed staring, but what I was really focused on was the depth of the eyes facing me then that had been averted the day before.  I could feel every piece of sadness, worry, and failure in them.  And, it felt . . . it felt horrible.  And even more horrible was the implication in those eyes that I had something to do with it.  Of course – I had insulted him and then this happened.  He probably hated that I had seen his performance.  And I had the presumption to even think to dedicate my program to him that day. 

I could have still changed it at that point, but I knew I wouldn’t.  It was more dedicated to him in that moment than ever before, and I knew it would be for the remainder of the season.  Because he was lost.  He was so lost, shrinking into himself beside his coach in the kiss and cry, just as lost as I had felt since the beginning of the year.

Before my program began, Katsuki and his coach slipped out of view into the crowd.  It didn’t matter to me whether he actually saw my skate or not at that point.  I still poured just as much of the sadness and loneliness I had just felt into the routine.  Katsuki filled the place where my soulmate used to stand, and he was real, real, and infinitely more lost.  And, I reached for him because we were the same: we were lost together.  And, I didn’t know him, I didn’t know him, but I felt the sting from where I had hurt him hovering over everything else, and it made me reach for him all the more.  If I could just get there, get there, then maybe we both could be happy.

When the music finally ended, I almost broke down on the ice and cried, because I had felt more emotion during that program than I had while skating in years.  It was such a relief but at so high a cost, that I had finally felt something, felt anything again.  I buried it all, though, taking only a second longer than usual to slip my smile back on for the audience.

* * *

I didn’t expect to see Katsuki again in Sochi after that.  I hoped he made it to World’s.  It would be interesting to see how he recovered from the implications of his latest performance.  At any rate, I planned to keep an eye on him from then on.

I couldn’t help searching the crowd for his dark hair during the medal ceremony, though.  I owed him my performance from that day, after all.  Much to my personal disappointment, he wasn’t there.

“Something wrong, Vitya?”  Yakov asked as we finally exited the skating complex.

“No, it’s nothing,” I answered, flashing him a smile.  He grunted and turned away, not fooled but letting it go.

* * *

Chris met me at the door of the banquet room that night, handing me a glass of champagne to match his own.  I felt I needed it.  I normally enjoy parties, but I was in no mood to be at that particular one.  While my eyes adjusted to the sheer amount of gold decorating the room, I drained my glass.

“I still can’t wrap my mind around Yuuri’s free skate.  I was so sure that he would make the podium,” Chris said.

“I know.  Have you seen him since then?”

“Nah – he probably already left Sochi.  He seemed devastated.  I don’t blame him at all.”

“So . . .  how do you know him so well?”

Chris raised an eyebrow.  “Jealous are we?” he asked.

“What?  No – no, I was just curious.”

“Your nose is turning red.”

And, indeed, I felt my nose growing hot.  I tried to rub it away with my hand.

“I’ve just chatted with him at a few competitions before,” Chris said.

“Oh.”

He patted me on the shoulder.  “It’s okay, Viktor.  He’s a good skater.  We’ll see him again.” He winked.

Just then, a rep from one of my sponsors approached us, and we spent the next few minutes conversing with her.  I found my attention wandering off, over her head, though.  The emotion that I had felt during my free skate had brought to my attention how boring – no – void the other areas of my life had become.  I couldn’t feel anything at this party, nothing at all, and it was nobody’s fault but my own.  I knew, objectively, that the room we were standing in contained all the elements that made a party successful: music, alcohol, atmosphere; but, to me, it felt fake and garish as if I was still standing outside the door watching everyone else enjoy the party.  And, I found that I wanted to leave.

“Let’s dance,” Chris said, extending a hand after the rep finally shifted on to another conversation. 

Well, that was one way to lift my mood.  I loved dancing, and Chris could dance well, causing me to laugh and smile with some of his more suggestive antics.  As we spun around the golden room, I grabbed another glass of champagne and finally began to feel like I was having fun.  Too bad I would return to St. Petersburg the next day, where Chris wouldn’t be around to cheer me up.

After our dance, I sought out one of the glasses of water adorning the edges of the room.

And that’s when I saw him.

Or rather, heard him.  A soft, soothing piano melody barely audible above the static of the party.  A melody that I had heard before, “Clair de Lune,” I realized after a few measures.  The famous notes flowed from the piano hidden in the corner, and sitting at that piano was Katsuki – alone, isolated from the party, surrounded by his own atmosphere.  His eyes were closed; he swayed slightly with the music at his fingertips. 

I stood perfectly still, watching him, and I felt something more than nothing.  I understood why Katsuki was in that corner.  He sat with the piano in the corner, isolated and alone, but I felt just as isolated standing in the center of the room.  Katsuki didn’t want to be at the party any more than I did.  The difference was that he hadn’t tried to hide from it all.  He was real, clear in a way that I never could be.  Despite his obvious sadness, life clung to him, stark and vibrant.  I could see the beginning of the end of my career, but for him, I saw a beginning, a new start, something that it was too late for me to have.

As the piano music slowly drifted to a conclusion, I backed away, seeing Katsuki rise and swipe a champagne flute off the table just before I turned back towards Chris.

“So, Katsuki’s here after all,” he said.

“You noticed?”

A smile curled his lips.  “I noticed you noticing him.”

We danced for a while longer, until my back jostled against that of another guest, then another. 

“Hey – Viktor,” Chris said, “turn around.  What’s going on?”

I turned, as Chris had instructed, to find a circle of people standing at the center of the dance floor with their backs facing us.  They were obviously looking at something.  I dragged Chris along behind me as we moved closer. 

My jaw dropped when we finally broke through the wall of people.  The first thing I saw was Yura, his bright blond hair fanning out of control as he spun and jumped on the polished floor.  I had never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would witness him attempting to breakdance.  I was shocked still until I heard Chris whistle low and long behind me, causing my vision to snap up a centimeter to focus on the other person dancing behind Yura. 

Katsuki.  I could have whistled as well.  The spark of life I had seen earlier was then on display for the entire room, and it was infectious, apparently, Yura being the first to succumb to its effects.  Katuski wasn’t just attempting to breakdance, he was succeeding at it.  He spun around on his hands, turning flips and throwing splits, all in time to the now pumping music that streamed in over our heads.  With every flip, the hem of his unbuttoned shirt lifted to display his well-toned torso.  His tie had disappeared along with his buttons, and he looked so much the better for it, unrestricted, and absolutely stunning.  He held captive every eye in the room.  Even Yakov couldn’t help but look away from his very-important-very-serious conversation, as Katsuki and Yura claimed a larger and larger portion of the floor. 

And, I found myself laughing, really laughing, without Chris having to crack a joke to pull me along.  I cheered along with the crowd every time Katuski pulled off another absolutely ridiculous move.  I wanted him to win.  I wanted him to win whatever kind of competition Yura had made this into.  I hadn’t really wanted anything in so long like I wanted Katsuki to win that night.

And, sure enough, poor Yura tired out and stopped dancing, heaving breaths and hair sticking in every direction, before Katsuki even broke a sweat.  That’s when I couldn’t help it any longer.  I had to dance with him, my new strong desire turning from winning to dancing in a fraction of a second.  I stepped closer to where he had continued to dance without any hesitation after Yura had dropped out and began to match my movements with the new style – salsa? no, flamenco, definitely flamenco – he had picked up.

At first, he didn’t notice me, seemingly focused on fitting his body to the movements of his feet.  But, then – _then_ – he pivoted around, his open shirt fanning out behind him, as the music flared, and paused.  He paused, just for a second, then his eyes and smile and movements were directed in all their intensity towards me.

And he was beautiful.  There was just no other word to describe him. Katsuki Yuuri, with his flushed face, dark eyes and darker hair, and the way his body moved, fluid and pulsing with the music, was beautiful.

With each beat, he moved closer to me, until I could smell the sweat and champagne clinging to him.  He looked up at me through his dark eyelashes.  He was close, our noses almost touching, the smile gone from his face.

“Viktor,” he breathed out, the syllables quiet, just for me.  “I’m Yuuri,” he said.

“I know,” I whispered back to him, leaning just the smallest fraction closer.  His smile returned, a bright flush resting just on the surface of his cheeks . . . and he was just beautiful.

Then his hands – _his hands_ were on me.  One wrapped around my waist and pressed into my back, burning through the layers of my miserably thick jacket.  The outline of that hand, a warm pressure, felt so real, a weight connecting me to the rest of the world.  His other hand came up to meet my own.  I couldn’t peel my eyes away from where my skin met his, so warm, almost feverish from the alcohol.  The finest dark hairs covered the back of his hand and wrist.

“Viktor, what are you looking at?” Yuuri said, his voice just rising over the music.  I snapped my head up to meet his gaze.

“You,” I said. 

A smile broke out across his face.  It extended farther towards one ear than the other, but I had the feeling that it was genuine, not practiced, appearing just for me.  Perfect.  I was so caught up in watching that smile that I almost lost my balance when he dipped me, but I didn’t fall because one of those feverish hands burned a trail over my slacks and down my thigh. He balanced for both of us, all while keeping that smile trained on me.  I knew then, that I wanted us to be the most beautiful couple in the room.  We flew around the dance floor, spinning and laughing and smiling, the lights glancing off his hair, his eyes, his lips, his teeth.

Before long, the music came to an end, and then, he was gone, as if it all had been a dream. 

I stood in a daze, even as I saw him dancing with Chris out of the corner of my eye.  The ghosts of his hands burned cold beneath my jacket and slacks.  I felt alone.  But I felt, I felt it that time, poignant and chilling.  Yuuri’s bright laughter from the other side of the room soon drew my attention.

It crossed my mind that perhaps I should have felt jealous or hurt, but I couldn’t feel anything but shock and attraction.  Chris had managed to divest Yuuri of the remainder of his shirt and slacks.  The well-toned muscles of his abdomen and thighs painted gold in the party lights, Chris just another shadow in the background.  Yuuri laughed and smiled as he danced, as if there was nothing else in the whole world that he would rather be doing.  I couldn’t help wishing that he was hanging off of me instead of that pole.  Perhaps, I imagined it, but his eyes swept the room once, twice, three times before landing directly on me, and never again looking away.  They remained trained on me as he slid down the pole, as Chris forced his shirt back onto his arms, only looking away briefly to attempt to pull an unloosened tie over his head.

As soon as Chris let him go, he made a straight path towards me.  Then, everywhere that his hands had been earlier, his entire body touched me.  I could feel everything, every muscle, and never had I hated my suit more.  His hips pressed against me again and again and again, everywhere except for just where I really wanted them. 

He inhaled a deep breath and pulled his head back from where it had been resting on my shoulder as if he wanted to speak, and I just knew that he would ask me to come back to his room.  I knew it was going to happen and that it would kill me to turn him down.  He was drunk, really drunk, and I probably was a little as well.  I shouldn’t go with him, but I wanted to.  I wanted to.  I would put him off until the next day, that much I could manage.  The next day, and I would go to him as soon as he called.

But, I didn’t have to do any of that.

He looked up at me, and his eyes were wide, so wide, as he began speaking in Japanese, as if he had no idea what effect he had on me.  His entire open, smiling demeanor managed to strike me as both incredibly seductive and endearing at the same time.  His large eyes sparkled in the golden lights strewn throughout the room.  From that distance, I could clearly see the contact lenses resting over his irises.  One of them had slipped, just a fraction of a millimeter, out of place, revealing a slither of brilliant blue.

Blue.

Yuuri had blue eyes?

I froze beneath his warm grasp.  Yuuri had blue eyes, just like I had always been told would be better for me, but he had covered them up and fought for his place all the way to the Grand Prix Final without them.  He had been valued for his skating and that alone.  I would never be able to say that about myself.  How much of my career relied on my looks and personality rather than my skating?

“Be my coach, Viktor!” he said.  And there he was, not asking to sleep with me, like so many others, but asking me to coach him, to skate with him.  It was tangible, genuine.

I thought, then, that I could love him.

I had more or less given up on being able to feel anything, including love, but, with time, I thought I could love Yuuri.

It was Chris that eventually pulled him off of me at the protest of a disgruntled Yura and the rather undivided attention of half the room.  I couldn’t let him go, though, not completely, at least.  With Chris’s help, I managed to reposition him so that he stood at my side, one of my arms wrapped around his waist to support him, which was surprisingly slender for how well-built his legs had appeared moments earlier.  I led us across the room to the abandoned tables in the corner, where I deposited him in a chair and sat down beside him without letting go.  We watched the party wind down in silence.  He leaned more of his weight against me and let his head come to rest on my shoulder, his hair insulating one side of my neck.  He seemed to have fallen asleep.  I measured his breaths against my side. 

Every now and again, a partygoer would glance our way, a young Italian girl, a dark haired man, and I wondered what they were thinking, if they really thought that my eyes meant that I had a soulmate.  If they thought that I shouldn’t be quite as “free with my charms” as the magazines like to put it, if they really, actually even cared.  I wondered what Yuuri would think if he was sober.  Would he be like them?

I felt a warm pressure on my right hand and looked down to see that Yuuri was holding it in one of his own.  Again, the thought struck me of how well our hands looked together.  I probably appeared quite strange to any onlookers, smiling into my lap at our joined hands.

“Are you sad?” he said, head still resting on my shoulder.

And, why would he be asking me that? “No – not anymore – now that I’m with you.”

“Really?”  He began rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand.

“Y-Yeah.”

“That’s good.  You should be-“ he hiccupped, rocking against my side, “-happy.”  I leaned into him a little more.

“Are you happy, Yuuri?”

He didn’t respond immediately.  “I . . . don’t know,” he said. And, that wasn’t right.  Objectively, I knew why he wasn’t happy, but I needed him to be happy.  Someone like Yuuri should never be sad. 

“What can I do to make you happy?” I asked.

“We could dance?  I love dancing,” he said, but made no move to stir.  I couldn’t withhold a light laugh.

“I hate to break it to you, but I think we’re done with dancing for the night.  Anything else?”

He began rubbing my hand again, just over the knuckles, the lights washing his skin in gold.  “Just stay here – with me.”  And that’s when he broke my heart.  I could feel myself, what I had built myself to be, cracking at the edges.  I was holding this beautiful man in my arms, and he was nothing but kind and sweet.  In no situation did he ever deserve to be sad.  I pulled him closer to me, and he yielded easily, our forms melting together even against the unyielding metal chairs.

One by one, skaters, coaches, and officials made their exits from the room.  Yuuri’s head eventually fell into my lap, where he slept soundly.  I brushed the hair out of his eyes, revealing his soft features smoothed over by sleep.  His thick, soft hair completely covered my fingers as I ran them through it again and again.

“Viktor, we need to leave – and so does Yuuri,” Chris said.  And where had he come from?  The room appeared much emptier than the last time I had looked up.  A few golden vested staff members were already sweeping the floor.

Chris helped me stand with Yuuri still nestled to my side.  He whined softly as we jostled him but otherwise remained silent.  I wanted to carry him back to his room, but his coach, Celestino, intercepted us before we could leave the room.  It had probably been a bad idea anyway. 

I didn’t think I would be able to let him go, though.  I tucked my number into the pocket on his shirt, before shifting him into his coach’s arms.  His hand brushed my arm in one last stolen touch before we stepped into the elevator.  Up until that point, Yuuri had remained not unconscious, but nearly so – silent, leaning from one person to another.  The chime of the elevator as it reached his floor seemed to rouse him, though. As his coach shuffled him out of the doors, he turned his head over his shoulder to look at me.  I expected to see a reflection of my own feelings in his large eyes: reluctance to let him go, hope for the next day, want, but I didn’t see sadness or happiness or anything identifiable, really.  Unsettling.  There it was again, almost identical to that feeling from the day before.  It made me want to grab him and hold him and take him back to my room despite everything.  But, the doors of the elevator were already closing.  I saw the slightest extension of his fingers in my direction, like he wanted to reach for me, then he was gone.

I stared at the doors as the elevator began to ascend once more.  I didn’t know what that had meant or what to do about it.  I thought about going back down to his floor – and – and – holding him for the remainder of the night and being there when he woke up in the morning.  That still probably wasn’t a great idea, though.  Maybe, I could just go down in the morning and be there before he got up and –

“So, you managed to snag the hottest guy in the room.” Chris startled me.

I ran a hand through my hair to calm myself.  “So, you’re admitting that you weren’t the hottest guy in the room?”

He chuckled.  “Oh no – I’d never admit that, but –“ he looked up at me, suddenly serious, “ – I’m glad you had fun tonight.”  And, I was too tired to respond with anything more than a slight nod, but he was right: for the first time in a long time I felt like I had fun.

That night, I lulled myself to sleep imagining what it would feel like to lie down next to Yuuri and wake up in his arms. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Again, sorry for the terribly long wait. I kind of drowned in school for a while, but I am managing to stay afloat at the moment. Please consider leaving a comment, they are so encouraging and motivate me to continue writing.


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